Sonoma County is the heart of California wine country. With a population of almost half a million, the region is known for its arable land and stunning vistas – the “Tuscany of America,” according to local rancher Bronte Edwards.

But Sonoma has a less genteel side: The area is also home to approximately 3 million head of livestock held in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These factory farms not only force animals to live in overcrowded, dirty conditions, they also produce copious amounts of manure, which can cause water pollution and other health hazards.

In November, county residents will have the unique opportunity to ban CAFOs with a ballot initiative that would completely prohibit industrial livestock operations. If “Measure J” passes, Sonoma will be the first county in the United States to ban CAFOs. It would call for a moratorium on the creation of future facilities, along with a three-year phase-out period for current operations. The petition to get Measure J on the ballot garnered 17,000 signatures more than the minimum of 20,000 needed to get on the ballot.

“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind,” said Cassie King, an organizer with the Coalition to End Factory Farming, a collection of groups backing Measure J.

According to the Sierra Club, “large, high density CAFOS have reduced the number of livestock farmers in the U.S. by 80%.” In a tight-knit agricultural county like Sonoma, though, even the big players are friendly faces at the grocery store. And if Measure J passes, it would force these larger enterprises in Sonoma to change their practices or shut down.

“It’s a good balance of a moderate ask that is widely supported by the public, and bold in that it’s the first of its kind.”

The measure faces strong opposition, even from some small-scale farmers and ranchers, who fear that banning CAFOs will disrupt an economy grounded in agritourism and gastronomy. The measure has split Sonoma County, with local farmers and concerned citizens lining up on both sides of the proposed ban. Both the “Yes on J” website and the one belonging to “No on J” feature numerous local farms and advocacy groups.

In an email to High Country News, Roy Smith, a Sonoma County farmer who runs a seven-acre hay operation, wrote that the debate lacks nuance: “Both sides argue a truth, and both sides permit a falsehood,” he said. Still, he applauded Measure J for “rais(ing) awareness of the presence of industrial confinement facilities in our backyard.”

In a country dominated by large-scale farming operations comprising thousands of acres of monocrops, Sonoma County is an outlier. Forty-three percent of its farms are very small — around one to nine acres — and 32% are 10 to 49 acres. (The average U.S. farm is 464 acres.) In 2022, Sonoma County farmers produced half a billion dollars’ worth of wine grapes. Livestock, poultry and animal products brought in approximately $140 million.

A series of recent legal fights over water pollution set the stage for Measure J. Last year, Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs), a nonprofit that focuses on chemical pollution, sued Reichardt Duck Farm, a 373-acre duck-processing facility in Sonoma County. CATs alleged that Reichardt was discharging storm water into an unnamed creek, which eventually made its way to Tomales Bay and ultimately the Pacific Ocean. Reichardt Duck Farm settled the suit.

“We heartily support curbing CAFOs. They’re disgusting. They have a horrific impact on the environment,” said Patty Clary, executive director of CATs, which is a member of the coalition backing Measure J.

This year, on July 5, CATs gave a dairy CAFO in Sonoma a 60-day notice of the group’s intent to file suit for violations of the Clean Water Act. Almost all waterways in Sonoma County are considered “impaired” by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning they’re too polluted for swimming and boating.

Clary, who grew up in Sonoma County, is not only concerned about the animals in CAFOs, but also the lives of the people who work in them. Measure J declares that the county must provide “a retraining and employment assistance program for current and former CAFO workers.” She hopes that a ban on CAFOs would create a “lower-key” agricultural environment.

“Without a giant CAFO, this sort of animal production would be more spread out in the community, where people could develop little co-ops and have a number of small farms providing the product that one big CAFO is producing,” she said.

Measure J is more complicated for many local farmers, including Smith, who raises sheep, poultry and swine, in addition to hay. But he agrees with one major aspect of it: a ban on poultry confinement facilities in Sonoma.

“They are an abomination in every possible way,” he said.

Smith grew up in Sonoma and laments the changes he has witnessed; a shift from small-scale operations dotting the landscape to large-scale enterprises that gobble everything up. “CAFOs, local and national, continue to drive retail prices down below levels that can sustain small, humane, agroecological producers,” he said.

But he fears that Measure J will impact some medium-sized dairies that, in his opinion, do not meet the standard definition of a CAFO.

Bronte Edwards and her wife, Liz Bell, who run Rainbow Family Ranching, share these concerns. Edwards and Bell are self-described “queer first-gen livestock ranchers.” They describe their farm as “carbon negative” and try to purchase locally grown hay. The prospect of Measure J worries them, especially its proposed definition of a CAFO, which denotes facilities where “animals … have been, are, or will be stabled or confined and fed or maintained for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period.” This “45-day” rule is part of the same definition that the EPA uses for CAFOs.

Other provisions in the measure — such as language specifying the number of animals confined and how waste is discharged — appear to protect farms like the Rainbow Family Ranching from the ban. Advocates for Measure J have identified 21 “large CAFOs” in Sonoma County that house anywhere from 900 to 600,000 animals. A spokesperson for “Yes on Measure J” said that an operation that meets the 45-day rule, but none of the other CAFO definitions, would not be affected.

“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed.”

Despite this, Edwards and Bell remain concerned about what the measure will mean for their neighbors, some of whom operate facilities with over 200 head of livestock — which might render them a CAFO under Measure J.

“This measure will force multigenerational family farmers to sell their farms. They will be fragmented, and they will be developed,” Edwards said.

She added that keeping farms together is important for conservation, as it allows wildlife to move between open spaces and grazing lands. In her day job, Edwards works with a land trust to purchase development rights and easements to keep farms whole, preserving land for future generations.

Regardless of the result at the ballot box in November, both sides of the Measure J debate agree on one thing: The proposal will leave a mark on Sonoma County. According to Clary, if Measure J passes, it could set an example to other counties across the nation.

“If it loses, it will have made a crack in the in the eggshell, and it will still have an impact,” she said.

This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post Banning Concentrated Feedlots is on the Ballot in Sonoma appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Standing knee-deep in an emerald expanse, a row of trees offering respite from the sweltering heat, Rosa Morales diligently relocates chipilín, a Central American legume, from one bed of soil to another. The 34-year-old has been coming to the Campesinos’ Garden run by the Farmworker Association of Florida in Apopka for the last six months, taking home a bit of produce each time she visits. The small plot that hugs a soccer field and community center is an increasingly vital source of food to feed her family. 

It also makes her think of Guatemala, where she grew up surrounded by plants. “It reminds me of working the earth there,” Morales said in Spanish. 

Tending to the peaceful community garden is a far cry from the harvesting Morales does for her livelihood. Ever since moving to the United States 16 years ago, Morales has been a farmworker at local nurseries and farms. She takes seasonal jobs that allow her the flexibility and income to care for her five children, who range from 18 months to 15 years old. 

This year, she picked blueberries until the season ended in May, earning $1 for every pound she gathered. On a good day, she earned about two-thirds of the state’s minimum hourly wage of $12. For that, Morales toiled in brutal heat, with little in the way of protection from the sun, pesticides, or herbicides. With scant water available, the risk of dehydration or heat stroke was never far from her mind. But these are the sorts of things she must endure to ensure her family is fed. “I don’t really have many options,” she said. 

Now, she’s grappling with rising food prices, a burden that isn’t relieved by state or federal safety nets. Her husband works as a roofer, but as climate change diminishes crop yields and intensifies extreme weather, there’s been less work for the two of them. They have struggled to cover the rent, let alone the family’s ballooning grocery bill. 

“It’s hard,” she said. “It’s really, really hot … the heat is increasing, but the salaries aren’t.” The Campesinos’ Garden helps fill in the gap between her wages and the cost of food.

Her story highlights a hidden but mounting crisis: The very people who ensure the rest of the country has food to eat are going hungry. Although no one can say for sure how many farmworkers are food insecure (local studies suggest it ranges from 52 to 82 percent), advocates are sure the number is climbing, driven in no small part by climate change. 

The 2.4 million or so farmworkers who are the backbone of America’s agricultural industry earn among the lowest wages in the country. The average American household spends more than $1,000 a month on groceries, an almost unimaginable sum for families bringing home as little as $20,000 a year, especially when food prices have jumped more than 25 percent since 2019.  Grappling with these escalating costs is not a challenge limited to farmworkers, of course — the Department of Agriculture says getting enough to eat is a financial struggle for more than 44 million people. But farmworkers are particularly vulnerable because they are largely invisible in the American political system.

“When we talk about supply chains and food prices going up, we are not thinking about the people who are producing that food, or getting it off the fields and onto our plates,” said Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli. 

Xiuhtecutli works with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition to protect farmworkers from the occupational risks and exploitation they face. Few people beyond the workers themselves recognize that hunger is a problem for the community, he said — or that it’s exacerbated by climate change. The diminished yields that can follow periods of extreme heat and the disruptions caused by floods, hurricanes, and the like inevitably lead to less work, further exacerbating the crisis.

There isn’t a lot of aid available, either. Enrolling in federal assistance programs is out of the  question for the roughly 40 percent of farmworkers without work authorization or for those who fear reprisals or sanctions. Even those who are entitled to such help may be reluctant to seek it. In lieu of these resources, a rising number of advocacy organizations are filling the gaps left by government programs by way of food pantries, collaborative food systems, and community gardens across America.

“Even though [farmworkers] are doing this job with food, they still have little access to it,” said Xiuhtecutli. “And now they have to choose between paying rent, paying gas to and from work, and utilities, or any of those things. And food? It’s not at the top of that list.”

∴

Historically, hunger rates among farmworkers, as with other low-income communities, have been at their worst during the winter due to the inherent seasonality of a job that revolves around growing seasons. But climate change and inflation have made food insecurity a growing, year-round problem. 

In September, torrential rain caused heavy flooding across western Massachusetts. The inundation decimated farmland already ravaged by a series of storms. “It impacted people’s ability to make money and then be able to support their families,” Claudia Rosales said in Spanish. “People do not have access to basic food.” 

As executive director of the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, Rosales fights to expand protections for farmworkers, a community she knows intimately. After immigrating from El Salvador, she spent six years working in vegetable farms, flower nurseries, and tobacco fields across Connecticut and Massachusetts, and knows what it’s like to experience food insecurity. She also understands how other exploitative conditions, such as a lack of protective gear or accessible bathrooms, can add to the stress of simply trying to feed a family. Rosales remembers how, when her kids got sick, she was afraid she’d get fired if she took them to the doctor instead of going to work. (Employers harassed her and threatened to deport her if she tried to do anything about it, she said.) The need to put food on the table left her feeling like she had no choice but to tolerate the abuse.   

“I know what it’s like, how much my people suffer,” said Rosales. “We’re not recognized as essential … but without us, there would not be food on the tables across this country.” 

 The floodwaters have long since receded and many farms are once again producing crops, but labor advocates like Rosales say the region’s farmworkers still have not recovered. Federal and state disaster assistance helps those with damaged homes, businesses, or personal property, but does not typically support workers. Under federal law, if agricultural workers with a temporary visa lose their job when a flood or storm wipes out a harvest, they are owed up to 75 percent of the wages they were entitled to before the disaster, alongside other expenses. They aren’t always paid, however. “Last year, there were emergency funds because of the flooding here in Massachusetts that never actually made it to the pockets of workers,” Rosales said. 

The heat wave that recently scorched parts of Massachusetts likely reduced worker productivity and is poised to trigger more crop loss, further limiting workers’ ability to make ends meet. “Climate-related events impact people economically, and so that then means limited access to food and being able to afford basic needs,” said Rosales, forcing workers to make difficult decisions on what they spend their money on — and what they don’t.  

The impossible choice between buying food or paying other bills is something that social scientists have been studying for years. Research has shown, for example, that low-income families often buy less food during cold weather to keep the heat on. But climate change has given rise to a new area to examine: how extreme heat can trigger caloric and nutritional deficits. A 2023 study of 150 countries revealed that unusually hot weather can, within days, create higher risks of food insecurity by limiting the ability to earn enough money to pay for groceries. 

It’s a trend Parker Gilkesson Davis, a senior policy analyst studying economic inequities at the nonprofit Center for Law and Social Policy, is seeing escalate nationwide, particularly as utility bills surge. “Families are definitely having to grapple with ‘What am I going to pay for?’” she said. “People, at the end of the month, are not eating as much, having makeshift meals, and not what we consider a full meal.” 

Federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, are designed to help at times like these. More than 41 million people nationwide rely on the monthly grocery stipends, which are based on income, family size, and some expenses. But one national survey of nearly 3,700 farmworkers found just 12.2 percent used SNAP. Many farmworkers and migrant workers do not qualify because of their immigration status, and those who do often hesitate to use the program out of fear that enrolling could jeopardize their status. Even workers with temporary legal status like a working visa, or those considered a “qualified immigrant,” typically must wait five years before they can begin receiving SNAP benefits. Just six states provide nutrition assistance to populations, like undocumented farmworkers, ineligible for the federal program.

The expiration of COVID-era benefit programs, surging food costs, and international conflicts last year forced millions more Americans into a state of food insecurity, but no one can say just how many are farmworkers. That’s because such data is almost nonexistent — even though the Agriculture Department tracks annual national statistics on the issue. Lisa Ramirez, the director of the USDA’s Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement, acknowledged that the lack of data on hunger rates for farmworkers should be addressed on a federal level and said there is a “desire” to do something about it internally. But she didn’t clarify what specifically is being done. “We know that food insecurity is a problem,” said Ramirez, who is a former farmworker herself. “I wouldn’t be able to point to statistics directly, because I don’t have [that] data.” 

Without that insight, little progress can be made to address the crisis, leaving the bulk of the problem to be tackled by labor and hunger relief organizations nationwide.

“My guess is it would be the lack of interest or will — sort of like a willful ignorance — to better understand and protect these populations,” said social scientist Miranda Carver Martin, who studies food justice and farmworkers at the University of Florida. “Part of it is just a lack of awareness on the part of the general public about the conditions that farmworkers are actually working in. And that correlates to a lack of existing interest or resources available to build an evidence base that reflects those concerns.” 

The lack of empirical information prevented Martin and her colleagues Amr Abd-Elrahman and Paul Monaghan from creating a tool that would identify the vulnerabilities local farmworkers experience before and after a disaster. “What we’ve found is that the tool that we dreamed of, that would sort of comprehensively provide all this data and mapping, is not feasible right now, given the dearth of data,” she noted.

However, Martin and her colleagues did find, in a forthcoming report she shared with Grist, that language barriers often keep farmworkers from getting aid after an extreme weather event. Examining the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, they found cases of farmworkers in Florida trying, and failing, to get food at emergency stations because so many workers spoke Spanish and instructions were written only in English. She suspects the same impediments may hinder post-disaster hunger relief efforts nationwide.

Martin also believes there is too little focus on the issue, in part because some politicians demonize immigrants and the agriculture industry depends upon cheap labor. It is easier “to pretend that these populations don’t exist,” she said. “These inequities need to be addressed at the federal level. Farmworkers are human beings and our society is treating them like they’re not.” 

∴

Tackling hunger has emerged as one of the biggest priorities for the Pioneer Valley Workers Center that Claudia Rosales leads. Her team feeds farmworker families in Massachusetts through La Despensa del Pueblo, a food pantry that distributes food to roughly 780 people each month.  

The nonprofit launched the pantry in the winter of 2017. When the pandemic struck, it rapidly evolved from a makeshift food bank into a larger operation. But the program ran out of money last month when a key state grant expired, sharply curtailing the amount of food it can distribute. The growing need to feed people also has limited the organization’s ability to focus on its primary goal of community organizing. Rosales wants to see the food bank give way to a more entrepreneurial model that offers farmworkers greater autonomy. 

“For the long term, I’d like to create our own network of cooperatives owned by immigrants, where people can go and grow and harvest their own food and products and really have access to producing their own food and then selling their food to folks within the network,” she said. 

Mónica Ramírez, founder of the national advocacy organization Justice for Migrant Women, is developing something very much like that in Ohio. Ramírez herself hails from a farmworker family. “Both of my parents started working in the fields as children,” she said. “My dad was eight, my mom was five.” Growing up in rural Ohio, Ramírez remembers visiting the one-room shack her father lived in while picking cotton in Mississippi, and spending time with her grandparents who would “pile on a truck” each year and drive from Texas to Ohio to harvest tomatoes and cucumbers all summer. 

The challenges the Ramírez family faced then persist for others today. Food security has grown so tenuous for farmworkers in Fremont, Ohio, where Justice for Migrant Women is based, that the organization has gone beyond collaborating with organizations like Feeding America to design its own hyperlocal food system. These hunger relief efforts are focused on women in the community, who Ramírez says usually face the biggest burdens when a household does not have enough money for food.

Migrant women, she said, “bear the stress of economic insecurity and food insecurity, because they are the ones who are organizing their families and making sure their families have food in the house.” 

Later this month, Ramírez and her team will launch a pilot program out of their office that mimics a farmers market — one in which farmworkers and migrant workers will be encouraged to pick up food provided by a local farmer, at no charge. That allows those visiting the food bank to feel empowered by choice instead of being handed a box with preselected goods, and they hope it will alleviate hunger in a way that preserves a sense of agency for families in need.

Although federal lawmakers have begun at least considering protecting workers from heat exposure and regulators are making progress on a national heat standard, so far there’s been no targeted legislative or regulatory effort to address food insecurity among farmworkers. 

In fact, legislators may be on the verge of making things worse.

In May, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee passed a draft farm bill that would gut SNAP and do little to promote food security. It also would bar state and local governments from adopting farmworker protection standards regulating agricultural production and pesticide use, echoing legislation Florida recently passed. The inclusion of such a provision is “disappointing,” said DeShawn Blanding, a senior Washington representative at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit advocacy organization. He hopes to see the version that eventually emerges from the Democrat-controlled Senate, where it remains stalled, incorporate several other proposed bills aimed at protecting farmworkers and providing a measure of food security.

Those include the Voice for Farm Workers Act, which would shore up funding for several established farmworker support initiatives and expand resources for the Agriculture Department’s farmworker coordinator. This position was created to pinpoint challenges faced by farmworkers and connect them with federal resources, but it has not been “adequately funded and sustained,” according to a 2023 USDA Equity Commission report. Another bill would create an office within the Agriculture Department to act as a liaison to farm and food workers.

These bills, introduced by Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California, would give lawmakers and policymakers greater visibility into the needs and experiences of farmworkers. But the greatest benefit could come from a third proposal Padilla reintroduced, the Fairness for Farm Workers Act. It would reform the 1938 law that governs the minimum wage and overtime policies for farmworkers while exempting them from labor protections.

“As food prices increase, low-income workers are facing greater rates of food insecurity,” Padilla told Grist. “But roughly half of our nation’s farmworkers are undocumented and unable to access these benefits.” He’d like to see an expedited pathway to citizenship for the over 5 million essential workers, including farmworkers, who lack access to permanent legal status and social safety benefits. “More can be done to address rising food insecurity rates for farmworkers.”

Still, none of these bills squarely addresses farmworker hunger. Without a concerted approach, these efforts, though important, kind of miss the point, Mónica Ramírez said. 

“I just don’t think there’s been a fine point on this issue with food and farmworkers,” she said. “To me it’s kind of ironic. You would think that would be a starting point. What will it take to make sure that the people who are feeding us, who literally sustain us, are not themselves starving?” 

∴

For 68-year-old Jesús Morales, the Campesinos’ Garden in Apopka is a second home. Drawing on his background studying alternative medicine in Jalisco, Mexico, he’s been helping tend the land for the last three years. He particularly likes growing and harvesting moringa, which is used in Mexico to treat a range of ailments. Regular visitors know him as the “plant doctor.” 

“Look around. This is the gift of God,” Morales said in Spanish. “This is a meadow of hospitals, a meadow of medicines. Everything that God has given us for our health and well-being and for our happiness is here, and that’s the most important thing that we have here.”

He came across the headquarters of the state farmworker organization when it hosted free English classes, then learned about its garden. Although it started a decade ago, its purpose has expanded over the years to become a source of food security and sovereignty for local farmworkers. 

The half-acre garden teems with a staggering assortment of produce. Tomatoes, lemons, jalapeños. Nearby trees offer dragonfruit and limes, and there’s even a smattering of papaya plants. The air is thick with the smell of freshly dug soil and hints of herbs like mint and rosemary. Two compost piles sit side by side, and a greenhouse bursts with still more produce. Anyone who visits during bi-monthly public gardening days is encouraged to plant their own seeds and take home anything they care to harvest. 

“The people who come to our community garden, they take buckets with them when they can,” said Ernesto Ruiz, a research coordinator at the Farmworker Association of Florida who oversees the garden. “These are families with six kids, and they work poverty wages. … They love working the land and they love being out there, but food is a huge incentive for them, too.” 

Throughout the week, the nonprofit distributes what Ruiz harvests. The produce it so readily shares is supplemented by regular donations from local supermarkets, which Ruiz often distributes himself.  

But some of the same factors driving farmworkers to hunger have begun to encroach on the garden. Blistering summer heat and earlier, warmer springs have wiped out crops, including several plots of tomatoes, peppers, and cantaloupes. “A lot of plants are dying because it’s so hot, and we’re not getting rains,” said Ruiz. The garden could also use new equipment — the irrigation system is manual while the weed whacker is third-rate, often swapped out for a machete — and funding to hire another person to help Ruiz increase the amount of food grown and expand when the garden is open to the public.

Demand is rising, and with it, pressure to deliver. Federal legislation addressing the low wages that lead to hunger for many farmworkers across the country is a big part of the solution, but so are community-based initiatives like the Campesinos’ Garden, according to Ruiz. “You do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “It’s always the right thing to feed somebody. Always.” 

The post Who is Feeding America’s Farmworkers? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In Montclair’s Third Ward is a tiny farm with big community value.

In the summertime, Montclair Community Farms transforms its less-than-10,000-square-foot lot into a space with something for everyone: a garden education program for children, a job training site for teens, and a pop-up produce market for Essex County residents.

“People really love being here,” said Lana Mustafa, executive director of Montclair Community Farms. “It’s really developed into something really beautiful and productive and community-oriented.”

On a breezy afternoon in early June, bunches of lettuce, bok choy, parsley, and garlic scapes begin to sprout and ripen. Some are even ready to harvest. Mustafa and her team are preparing inventory for their Monday farmers market, where several dozen shoppers use their SNAP or WIC benefits to buy fresh produce.

READ: How to apply for food aid and assistance in New Jersey

But Mustafa said serving Essex County residents isn’t easy when governments don’t consider urban farming as a viable solution to bring affordable, fresh food to food-insecure communities.

To do so, the state must confront its complicated history of farming and pair it with long-term municipal investments – steps that some argue New Jersey has yet to take.

“We need the state of New Jersey to take urban [agriculture] seriously,” said Mustafa.

Again and again, Mustafa says, red tape has hindered her small farm’s ability to serve its community. Because she doesn’t have at least five acres, her application to join the federal Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program – which would have enabled her to accept food vouchers from low-income seniors – was denied four times. It was only after extensive advocacy with other community groups that the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved her application in 2023.

The high cost of a permit (up to $5,000 annually) forced her to end her composting program this spring.

“What happens to this food waste now that we can’t accept it? It has to go back to the landfill,” said Mustafa, whose farm collects more than 8,000 pounds of food waste annually.

Emilio Panasci, co-founder and executive director of the Urban Agriculture Cooperative, said it’s no coincidence that urban farms located in and around Essex County’s seven food deserts get little to no municipal support.

READ: How Essex County falls short on food access (and how you can help)

“Consumer food access mirrors our patterns of segregation in this country, and that is a political as well as economic choice,” said Panasci. “It’s no accident that outside of a few struggling small farms and pop-up markets in the South Ward of Newark, there is very little if any high-quality, fresh food options – and those are available at premium prices – in our neighboring Maplewood or South Orange.”

Segregation in farming

While the practice of growing food can be traced back to Indigenous and Black agricultural practices, it was white farmers in New Jersey who benefitted the most from an agricultural economy built on slavery.

In the 1700s and 1800s, farmers in the “Garden State” relied on enslaved people to herd and slaughter animals, grow crops, maintain their meadowlands, and construct their farms. Even after slavery was abolished in New Jersey in 1866, white farmers created their own form of sharecropping called “cottaging,” where former enslaved Black people would provide labor in exchange for shelter and crops.

In her book Farming While Black, Leah Penniman details what happened next for farmers of color after Jim Crow and the passage of civil rights legislation.

“Urban farmers of color removed rubble, planted trees, installed vegetable beds, and built structures for community gatherings,” wrote Penniman about the rise of Black and Latinx farmers reviving agricultural traditions in the 1960s and 1970s.

Still, the legacy of segregation persists. A 2022 report from Rutgers University showed that urban farms in New Jersey tend to be clustered in areas with higher SNAP participation, where residents are more likely to be Black or Latinx. And in a county where white people make up less than one-third of the population, they own three-quarters of all urban farms in Essex County, according to a 2022 U.S. census of agriculture.

Fallon Davis, chair of the Black & Brown, Indigenous, Immigrant Farmers United (BIFU), said these inequities are “systemic by design.”

“We have to understand the system was never designed for Black and Brown people to live this long. It was never designed for us to thrive, survive, have families, and be these beautiful land beings.”

They explained the lack of support for urban farmers disproportionately targets Black neighborhoods in Essex County and perpetuates segregation.

“New Jersey hasn’t prioritized advocacy for urban farming, which would protect and feed Black folks,” they said.

Farming with no water on borrowed land

Several miles from Montclair Community Farms, Keven Porter’s farm in Newark has faced a slew of setbacks typical for urban farmers. For starters, he still lacks basic farming infrastructure – like running water.

More than a decade after establishing Rabbit Hole Farm, Porter is still trying to get the city of Newark to supply consistent water. For years, he’s had to call in favors from neighbors or ask the fire department to deliver water gallons.

“They’re just ignorant to the fact that we are a benefit,” said Porter, a Black farmer and Newark resident.

Porter and his partner co-founded Rabbit Hole Farm in 2013 through Newark’s Adopt-A-Lot program. Today, Rabbit Hole Farm is a 6,000-square-foot community hub in Newark’s South Ward that provides herbal education, wellness programs, and cooking classes to Newark residents, where more than half of its public school students are eligible for free or reduced lunch programs.

Porter’s farm faces another common challenge: he doesn’t own his farmland. Through Newark’s Adopt-A-Lot program, residents can use the city’s vacant lots but not own them, regardless of how long they’ve been tending to them.

Fallon Davis of BIFU also has a farm in Newark, run by their youth education nonprofit STEAM URBAN. They said Adopt-A-Lot is “a flawed system because [the city] can take it whenever they want.”

Both farmers have been working with the Trust for Public Land to explore how they can acquire their lots in Newark.

“If we figured out how to get people land ownership, if we taught people how to grow their own food, if we taught people how to advocate for themselves, it would single-handedly change our communities and they don’t want that,” Davis said.

Solutions focused on permanency

Panasci of the Urban Agriculture Cooperative said that long-term solutions that allow for food growing and local food markets in an urban environment are key.

“Our zoning is different here. Our density is different. When you combine that with the fact that we lack a cohesive urban agriculture policy at the local level.. it’s very hard for a farmer or farmer’s market to maintain land over time and … build infrastructure on it,” said Panasci.

On Fridays, Panasci and his team prepare farm boxes filled with kale, escarole, mushrooms, honey, and eggs. His organization sources inventory from more than 30 growers across the state before the team distributes the boxes to schools, food pantries, hospitals, and senior centers with limited access to fresh foods.

Panasci emphasized that municipal support is critical for urban farms, which are especially vulnerable to gentrification and displacement from developers.

“Farming is hard in general, but urban farming when there’s not necessarily a real city system for it… it’s almost set up to not work [and] to really undermine you,” said Panasci.

In the past few years, several bills have been introduced aimed at formalizing urban agriculture policies and sustaining the sector.

In January 2024, Assemblywoman Annette Quijano reintroduced a bill to establish an urban farming pilot program for emerging urban farms. Senator Teresa Ruiz and Senator Nellie Pou also reintroduced a bill that would establish an urban farming grant and loan program. Neither bill has made it out of committee for further consideration.

Jeanine Cava, executive director of the NJ Food Democracy Collaborative, points to the Massachusetts Healthy Food Incentive Program (HIP) as a potential model for what’s possible in New Jersey. This state-funded program reimburses SNAP users when they buy food from eligible HIP vendors.

“Right now, we don’t have dedicated state funding specifically for those kinds of incentives that incentivize people to buy locally produced food,” she said about the lack of permanent funding.

Davis of BIFU emphasized that Black and Brown farmers need to be at the center of any urban farming solution. BIFU’s statewide collective of 40 members plans to release their policy resolutions later this summer, which will include recommendations for land ownership and state funding for BIPOC farmers.

“We also need to give [politicians] some of the language of our ask… the community does need to do some work,” they said. “If you want your community to change, you gotta also advocate for your community.”

Learn more

Learn more about Montclair Community Farms and Rabbit Hole Farm’s upcoming programs and events.

You can also get involved with Urban Agriculture Cooperative, Black & Brown, Indigenous, Immigrant Farmers United, and NJ Food Democracy Collaborative via programming and advocacy opportunities.

The post Urban Farms are a Lifeline for Food-Insecure Residents. Will New Jersey Finally Make Them Permanent? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

One week later, Alabama passed a similar ban, and Arizona and Tennessee are also poised to follow suit. A long list of other states, meanwhile, have banned the word “meat” from cultivated meat packaging.

Yet the movement to ban lab-grown meat isn’t confined to the U.S. Italy became the first country to criminalize cultivated meat in 2023, as well as banning the use of words like burger and sausage on packaging for alternative proteins. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the same farmers struggling with the effects of climate change, like drought, are revolting against stricter regulations on pollution from livestock manure.

Conspiracy Theories and an Ongoing Culture War

Dozens of peer-reviewed studies have shown that livestock accounts for anywhere between 11 and 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, much of which comes from land use and cow burps. As part of the solution, groups like the World Resources Institute have suggested that consumers in countries with higher per capita meat consumption — like the U.S. — could reduce their food-related emissions by shifting 40 percent of their meat-based diet (cows, sheep, goats) by 2050 to meat alternatives, whether plant-based or lab-grown, or a mix.

Unsurprisingly, DeSantis is not on board, and his speech that day was littered with misinformation. He denied that meat is making climate change worse, and presented the alternatives to be banned as a plot against the meat industry. “One of the things that these folks want to do, is they want to eliminate meat production in the United States,” DeSantis said at his press briefing. “The goal is to get to a point where you will not be raising cattle.” While that may be the goal of cultivated meat backers, the reality is the industry is a fraction of the size of Big Meat. A more realistic hope might be that one day cultivated meat could be one way out of many to reduce how much meat we consume.

And of course, the public still has a choice in the matter. “This is not about forcing people to eat cultivated meat,” Nico Muzi, co-founder and managing director of Madre Brava, a food and environment advocacy organization, tells Sentient. “This is about allowing a technology to be developed and potentially marketed.”

DeSantis did not shy away from the most common misinformation, including jabs at Bill Gates, the “global elite” and the campaign to make the world eat insects. Many of these points echo the “Great Reset” conspiracy theories promoted by far-right political and media figures dating back to the pandemic, Nusa Urbancic, CEO of the Changing Markets Foundation, an advocacy group favoring sustainable markets, tells Sentient. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Jeff Bezos invested a reported $60 million into lab-grown meat in Florida just before DeSantis signed the ban into law.)

These conspiracy theories are baseless, but they are also practically endemic in some online spaces. In a Changing Markets report analyzing anti-alternative protein messages on social media over a 14-month period, the majority of posts were linked to various aspects of the Great Reset conspiracy theory. For example, when a 2022 heatwave killed thousands of cattle in Kansas, some people falsely suggested they were purposely killed to boost Bill Gates’ lab-grown meat business — steamrolling over the scientific evidence for extreme heat spurred by climate change. Indeed, the mocking “Save Our Beef” sign at the DeSantis press briefing echoed the idea that the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates and other forces have an agenda to take over.

“Florida’s ban and soon Pennsylvania’s ban of cultured meat clearly demonstrates the prevailing ignorance of science among consumers at large and policy makers (often backed by deep-pocket science doubters),” wrote Kantha Shelke, founder of a food science firm called Corvus Blue, LLC and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, in an email. These bans hinder innovation rather than seek protocols for vetting new technologies in food science, she added.

Proponents of this narrative also point to a non-peer reviewed 2023 University of California, Davis, study that claimed lab-grown meat was 25 times worse for the climate than traditional beef. Though the study was a preprint and vigorously contested by scientists who work in the cultivated meat field, many media outlets printed the headline of the study, and the damage was done.

That might be part of the reason why misinformation about meat and climate change isn’t limited to people who believe conspiracy theories. A shocking 74 percent of respondents to a Washington Post poll said cutting out meat would have little or no impact on climate change, despite the bulk of evidence showing the climate impacts of livestock farming, especially beef.

The Chewy Science of Cultivated Meat

Even as the 18th-largest cattle ranching state, Florida’s cattle history has deep roots dating back to Spanish colonization in the 16th century. Among the long legacy of cattle ranchers is Dusty Holley, director of field services for the Florida Cattleman’s Association and a seventh-generation Floridian whose family has been cattle ranching since the early 1800s. “We know that meat is something that people eat that’s from a muscle of an animal,” he said. “We’re not really sure what this lab-grown protein is.”

In actuality, cultivated meat is not that mysterious. Lab-grown meat made its public debut in 2013, when researchers at Maastricht University served the first lab-grown beef patty on live television. It became known as the $325,000 burger, one that needed salt and pepper, according to one taster. Since then, technological advancements have skyrocketed, bringing the average cost estimate — as of today — down to about $10, which is still more expensive than standard beef.

Although opponents like to say it’s not real meat — and shouldn’t be labeled as such — it’s near-identical to the beef and chicken coming out of slaughterhouses. “There’s no ingredients we’re bringing to the process that’s any different than what an animal uses to grow,” says David Kaplan, a biomedical engineer who leads a cellular agriculture lab at Tufts University. He argues that it’s as safe as traditional meat. Indeed, the FDA and USDA have protocols in place to regulate cultivated meat approved for sale in the U.S.

The reason cultivated meat is virtually identical is that it’s made from meat cells. First, scientists take a small biopsy of muscle, which causes little to no harm to the live animal. To get those initial cells to grow, scientists “feed” them a growth serum. Initially, companies used what’s called fetal bovine serum — the blood of cow fetuses after the mother is slaughtered — to keep these cells alive. The cells need some sort of scaffold to latch onto, like stripped-down broccoli or spinach, and then will grow in large tanks called bioreactors to become burger, pork shoulder or chicken thigh. The process itself isn’t entirely new; it’s similar to how scientists grow human organ cells for medical purposes, Glenn Gaudette tells Sentient. Gaudette is a biomedical engineer at Boston College who has grown human heart cells for cardiovascular diseases, and is now applying his research to cultivated meat.

The potential to make meat, only without the ranch, has felt like a blow to generational farmers like Holley. “You build this, one, great track record of consumer safety, and two, strong consumer confidence,” he says. Seeing the USDA stamp on meat packaging in the grocery reassures people it’s safe for them and their families, he added. “It’s been that way my whole life,” Holley tells Sentient. “A product that we’re not really sure what it is — it should not step right in and be labeled as meat.”

In reality, there is a very long way to go before cultivated meat could really cut into the meat industry. There are a slew of challenges to scaling production in a way that makes it economically viable. For one, the process is water- and energy-intensive, so researchers are looking into ways of using renewable energy to fuel the process. It also requires completely sterile and temperature-controlled environments, which are expensive. Compared with the global meat production, cultivated meat is still in its infancy. The budding industry has raised $3.1 billion in investments compared with the meat industry’s revenue of $1.3 trillion.

Stoking Fear Among Farmers

Although the science is relatively straightforward, narratives about the safety of lab-grown meat persist, especially among farmers and their powerful lobbies. Beyond states like Florida and Texas, where cattle ranching groups have an influential voice in state politics, farm lobbies in Italy and the Netherlands have stalled critical climate and environmental policies.

In reaction to the European Union’s Green New Deal, which proposed reducing pesticides, restoring nature and planting more climate-resilient crops, Dutch farm groups have pushed back. “Politicians in Europe are really concerned that these farmers will move too far right if they don’t give them whatever they want,” says Urbancic, the Changing Markets CEO.

In Florida, appealing to farmers is a well-worn political tradition. “I’ll bet many of you didn’t know that I’m a farmer’s kid,” Senator Jay Collins, who introduced the bill banning lab-grown meat, said at the May 1 press briefing. “Our family struggled coming out of the ’80s. It turns out that Democratic policies weren’t good then either, and our family ended up losing our farm.”

No matter the perception of reality, animal agriculture is still the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions behind fossil fuels and is the number one cause of deforestation and biodiversity loss. It also uses about a third of global grain production at a lower output; 25 calories of cattle feed, for example, produces just one calorie of beef, according to Yale’s Center for Business and the Environment. Beef is considered the least efficient type of meat.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Integrating cultivated meat technology with more traditional forms of agriculture could also help reduce the impacts of meat production and its drain on natural resources, Gaudette suggests. “What if we were to grow more meat from the same number of cattle, or grow more meat from fewer cattle, so that now we can have more water?” he said, adding that the approach should be collaborative. “There are farmers that are hard workers that are concerned about losing their livelihood,” he said. “So can we involve them in this process?”

A cultivated meat collaborative just like this is underway in the Netherlands, in fact. The argument that cultivated meat threatens agriculture is paradoxical, says Madre Brava’s Muzi, whose parents are Argentinian ranchers. “This push against cultivated meat is the work of a very specific way of producing meat,” he said, adding that it favors industrialized agriculture that keeps big farmers in power while pushing out small and medium-sized ones. It perpetuates a global, resource-intensive system where animal feed like soy is causing deforestation in parts of South America. “In a world where we need to feed a lot more people, meat…will still be demanded and exacerbating climate change and deforestation,” Muzi said.

He adds that alternative proteins would help farmers. “An important shift to this type of alternative proteins could free up a lot of farmland to allow for more agroecological farming,” he says, such as incorporating rewilding projects to mitigate emissions.

Kaplan says he sees the knowledge gap about the science of cultivated meat — and it’s a responsibility he places on himself. “We don’t do a great job of educating the broader public,” he says. “But I think it’s also just symptomatic of the world today. It’s a very polarized set of constituencies out there.”

Still, Kaplan hears a more positive outlook on the future from his students. “The younger population is clearly invested in this (cultivated meat),” he tells Sentient, and for all sorts of reasons. “It could be for sustainability, population, food equity, healthier foods, animal welfare. It all comes into what drives them.”

Update: This piece has been updated to clarify the cultivated meat industry’s value in terms of investments.

This article originally appeared in Sentient Media.

The post Inside Florida’s Ban on Lab-Grown Meat appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“My ancestors were doing this before even the [Spanish] Conquistadors arrived in Mexico [in 1519],” says Paiz, while crouching down to pick up a handful of powdery soil from the chinampa, or “floating garden,” on which we are both standing.

These highly productive man-made island-farms, which can be found floating on lakes across the south of Mexico’s capital, date back to the time of the Aztecs or perhaps even earlier — and now proponents say that these ancient engineering wonders could provide an important, sustainable food source as the city faces historic drought.

“My grandparents taught me the methods,” adds Paiz, 32, who is the fifth generation of his family to be a chinampero working in San Gregorio Atlapulco, a traditional working-class neighborhood about 10 miles south of the center of Mexico City.

Experts say that these chinampas, which have been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, are considered one of the most productive agricultural systems in the world. The artificial islands are built by gathering large amounts of soil from the bottom of the lake and placing it on top of reeds, grasses and rushes in a mass that rises above the water. Farmers then plant a fence of ahuejotes, Mexican willow trees, around the plot to naturally protect against erosion. This system means that the chinampa’s soil is constantly enriched by nutrient-filled sediment flowing in from the surrounding ditches and canals, yielding multiple harvests every year.

“In terms of agriculture, they are one of the best examples of how humans can work with nature,” says Lucio Usobiaga, founder of Arca Tierra, an organization providing local farmers in the area with technical and entrepreneurial support.

One of the first traces of the chinampas dates back to the 14th century, when the Aztecs arrived at the region of what is now modern-day Mexico City. There, they founded the settlement of Tenochtitlán — which would become one of the most powerful cities in all Mesoamerica — in the Valley of Mexico.

But as the Aztecs soon discovered, the valley’s boggy, lake-filled landscape was difficult to cultivate or build on. So they devised an ingenious plan to adapt to the surroundings: the chinampas.

A 2013 paper by North Carolina State University professor Matthew Teti found that in the 16th century, chinampa farms could produce 13 times as much crop as dry-land farming in the same area — a system that provided food for hundreds of thousands of people. Chinampas, the study said, are “one of the most intensive and productive agricultural systems ever devised.”

“Aztec planners created these vital waterways as integral to the existence of its cultural, physical, and spiritual, urban identity, rather than draining the water and excluding it from the urban experience,” it continued.

In the case of Jose Paiz, the age-old system is still reaping rewards today. He says that his 7,000 square meters of chinampa, for example, can produce as much as 100 kilograms of broccoli per day — which is sold alongside the yields of fresh herbs, spinach, chard, radishes, corn and kale at local markets in the south of Mexico City.

“I’m proud to be continuing the tradition of my ancestors,” he says.

Meanwhile, according to Arca Tierra, their network of seven producers in the region cultivates over 40,000 square meters of land, employing a total of 27 workers in the field and producing 3,650 kilograms per month. At some farms, as many as 95 varieties of vegetables and herbs are cultivated, underlining the fertility of the method. The production brings in over $4,000 per month in crop sales.

“At the beginning, it was mainly a commercial endeavor to source organic produce close to the city,” says Usobiaga, who supplies restaurants in Mexico City and began working with chinamperos in 2009. “But I learned they are very important in many regards and have historical and cultural importance.”

The design of the chinampas is particularly efficient in its use of water, which it can absorb and retain from the surrounding canals for long periods as well as allowing crops to draw from the groundwater directly, reducing the need for active irrigation.

This could prove hugely valuable for Mexico City and its 22 million residents, since water supplies have fallen to historic lows due to abnormally low rainfall partly attributable to climate change. And lessons learned from the chinampas could potentially help cities around the planet: the UN World Water Development 2024 Report found the number of people lacking access to drinking water in cities will likely reach two billion by 2050.

“The technical aspects of agriculture are innate to every place,” says Usobiaga. “But the way of thinking that created the chinampas, that sensibility, has to be appreciated and valued: To work with the flow of nature, the flow of the seasons. That is what we have to use to get us out of the problem we are in.”

The unique wetlands ecosystem is also home to two percent of the world’s and 11 percent of Mexico’s biodiversity, including the critically endangered axolotl, or Ambystoma mexicanum, an incredible salamander-like amphibian that is able to regenerate every part of its body — even parts of its vital organs such the heart and brain.

Meanwhile, the chinampas also provide a host of other benefits: they filter water, cool the city, sequester carbon, offer green space for locals, and are now a popular destination for tourists who take boats along the picturesque waterways.

The value of the chinampas was underlined during the Covid-19 pandemic, when, as the city’s major markets ground to a halt, the chinampas were able to provide healthy, locally-grown food. In some cases, sales more than doubled.

“People began to search for healthier food,” says David Monachon, a social sciences researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who has researched the chinampas as a sustainable food source. “There was this focus on local economy and community. Many people didn’t make this connection before.”

Yet despite their immense value, the chinampas are under threat: rising urbanization means the chinampa landscape is being built on; pollution is dirtying the waters that feed them; younger generations are losing interest in agriculture; and agro-industry is under-cutting the small-scale producers in a price war.

“There are a lot of challenges and problems,” says Monachon, who is supporting a local cooperative of chinamperos to sell their goods via the Mercado Universitario Alternativo, or Alternative University Market. “But chinampas could feed the city.”

Now, only 20 percent of the 2,200 hectares of chinampas are in use, and only about 2.5 percent are being actively cultivated for farming food — the rest is being used for growing flowers and tourism. But Arca Tierra is helping to restore the chinampas — five hectares to date — and is training 15 young students in the required skills to cultivate them — the second, six-month cohort — while also carrying out research on the most effective techniques and productive crops to use on them.

“We have demonstrated that it can be done on a small scale,” says Usobiaga, who believes chinampas have the potential to produce enough of crops like lettuces, herbs and broccoli for all of Mexico City. “But the chinampas need support and investment from the government to scale up production.”

At Xochimilco market, the largest in the area, there is clear evidence of appetite for a resilient, local food system and signs that this ancient Aztec tradition can still bear fruit. The market bustles with traders and customers, spilling from the covered area out onto the streets.

Rosa Garcia, 47, is rushing around delivering lettuce, spinach, cilantro and broccoli to her 14 clients of the day. The produce, grown at her one-hectare chinampa at San Gregorio Atlapulco, is in high demand. Garcia says that each day her family-run farm can earn as much as 1,000 to 1,500 Mexican pesos ($60 to $90).

“I’ve been doing this since I was a girl,” says Garcia, ticking off the orders as they are dispatched. “It’s a system that works. Why do anything different?”

This article was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful. Reasons to the Cheerful is a nonprofit online magazine covering stories of hope, rooted in evidence. You can read more from Reasons to be Cheerful here. 

The post Mexico’s Floating Gardens Are an Ancient Wonder of Sustainable Farming appeared first on Modern Farmer.

For decades, Cairo—wedged between the Missouri and Kentucky border at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers—has struggled to grow its local economy and population. One hundred years ago, Cairo boasted more than 15,000 citizens; today, its population has shrunk below 1,700. Median household income hovers just above $30,000, with about 24 percent of residents living in poverty—more than double the average in Illinois. Cairo doesn’t even have a gas station. Town residents have felt its lack of a grocery store more acutely, often having to cross state lines to get the most basic supplies.

But recently that trend has begun to change. Last summer, Rise Community Market opened its doors in Cairo, marking the first time in more than eight years town residents could go to a local grocery store. It was the result of more than two years of hard work and planning by community organizers, city officials and public service agencies. One reason behind their success: the grocery store’s model.

In 2021, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton connected Cairo Mayor Thomas Simpson with a team at Western Illinois University about opening a community-owned cooperative grocery store right off Cairo’s main street. Sean Park is the program manager of the Value-Added Sustainable Development Center (VASDC), a unit of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University in Macomb. “That particular area had been beat down so much,” says Park, who has more than a decade of experience owning and operating an independent grocery store, as well as a background in rural development. Working with the Institute, Park has found unlikely success in rejuvenating small town businesses like grocery stores in a time when they face persistent distress.

Cairo’s situation may be unique, but it’s not unusual in losing its grocery store. Limited or no access to food tends to be thought of as an urban phenomenon, but it affects rural communities just as much. Seventy-six counties nationwide don’t have a single grocery store—and 34 of those counties are in the Midwest and Great Plains. According to a 2021 Illinois Department of Public Health report and the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Access Research Atlas, 3.3 million Illinois residents live in food deserts. (The USDA defines a rural food desert as any low-income community where the nearest grocery store is 10 or more miles away). To combat this growing reality, in August 2023, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed into law the Illinois Grocery Initiative, a first-of-its-kind $20 million program that will provide capital, technical assistance and a range of services to open or expand grocery stores in underserved and low-income neighborhoods across the state.

Even before Illinois’ new initiative, rural and small town communities in Illinois like Mount Pulaski, Farmer City and Carlinville have been working with VASDC, organizing their communities to pave the way for cooperatively owned, community-based grocers. Cooperative grocery stores were once perceived as the stuff of elite, granola-munching college towns and coastal enclaves. But today’s co-op advocates emphasize the power of cooperative ownership structures to provide local, democratic control of a community’s essential needs. While the economies of mass-scale production and logistics that sustain and supply traditional chain store or conglomerate grocers like Walmart and Dollar General are often deemed “efficient,” the Covid-19 pandemic revealed their underlying fragility and susceptibility to supply chain disruption.

It’s estimated that Walmart now sells just over a quarter of all groceries in the United States. In his forthcoming book Barons: Money, Power and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry, antitrust expert Austin Frerick writes that the gutting of New Deal-era price floor regulations has allowed companies like Walmart to amass a level of dominance not seen in US history. To do so, he writes, Walmart “demands that a supplier decrease the price or improve the quality of an item each year,” in addition to giving Walmart delivery priority.

In contrast, local, cooperative ownership helps guarantee that decision making about how a store is run and what it stocks are based on the community benefit. The items on the shelves of co-ops like Cairo’s Rise Community Market aren’t the stuff of Whole Foods, but these stores help bring needed items close to the community, like fresh produce and meat, which tend to be sourced from farmers and producers nearby. Robert Edwards, Rise Community Market’s store manager, says that local stores may not be able to match the extensive inventory and cost a little more than the Walmarts of the world, but “what you get for those few extra cents you spend is the ability to help those in your community” by ensuring that  goods are available “for those in your community who lack the ability to travel for them.”

Interest in bringing community-owned stores to rural America isn’t limited to Illinois. Across the country, communities are experimenting with new ways to address the disappearance of rural and small town grocery stores. The Institute for Self-Reliance has detailed examples of innovative models in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, including self-service grocers, rural grocery delivery and nonprofit grocers. Food cooperative programs are now active at state universities in Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin and elsewhere, and in recent years rural cooperative development centers have been active in almost all 50 states.

“Cooperative development is once again ascendant,” says Stacey Sutton, director of the Solidarity Economy Research, Policy and Law Project and associate professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago. “And it’s rising in areas that have not seen sufficient support in the past.”

Even though agricultural cooperatives, or farmers’ co-ops, have long been a cornerstone in rural communities, Sutton explains that there has been a significant gap in cooperative development for other types of collectively owned, democratically managed enterprises. Part of this is due to the influence of institutions like the USDA and land grant universities in rural communities, which have traditionally invested their resources in agricultural cooperatives, pooling resources around commodity crop and livestock production. “What’s missing is exactly what’s happening at Western Illinois, in terms of supporting other types of cooperatives, such as food cooperatives, which are essential in disinvested communities,” says Sutton.

One of the major challenges facing cooperative development in rural communities is access to technical services, or the process of providing specialized know-how and business acumen to help communities plan and build capacity for creating models of collective ownership. This is where the VASDC team comes in.

Unlike chain grocers or corporate juggernauts that take a one-size-fits-all approach, VASDC’s methods are more artisanal, tailored to the specific needs of developing a sustainable community-owned grocer. “The financial calculations of a full business plan require everything down to the floor plan,” Park says. “If we change the floor plan and some of the refrigeration section, it’s going to change your utility bill and the amount that you sell in each department. From there it’s going to change the profit margin in both those departments.”

Facing stiff competition discount stores like Walmart means that a cooperative’s success is totally dependent on community buy-in and organizing. For many communities, there’s an educational component to VASDC’s consulting. The kind of ongoing, sustainable collective action and community organizing required to keep a cooperative vibrant, coupled with learning and navigating the practice of democratic ownership, can be taxing and messy. Cooperatives often require more than just showing up to vote. It can take anywhere from six months to seven years to build a cooperative grocery, and it may not always work the first time.

Park says it can also be a hurdle to inform residents that cooperative grocers are open to non-members for shopping and that member-ownership is more about investing in a store’s sustainability than earning Costco-like membership privileges. On the flip side, member-owners who are unfamiliar with cooperative concepts sometimes expect Gordon Gecko-like returns on their investment. That’s just not possible in an industry where profits can be razor thin or in a cooperative where profits are typically reinvested in the store. Yet, Park says that for the communities he serves, the process is often worth it. “When you can guide them from concept to that opening day, that’s really rewarding.”

In the 12 years that Park has led VASDC, he has helped countless rural communities throughout Illinois and the Midwest develop community ownership models for grocery stores. Edwards, the manager of the Cairo co-op, credits Park’s successes to his previous work owning and managing a grocery store. “I find solace in knowing that he understands the hurdles of managerial responsibilities and the stress this can bring.” Park’s advice, he says, has been “invaluable in helping me navigate challenges,” and was vital to him in making a smooth transition into the manager role when he started in January 2023, six months before the opening. “Sean is unafraid of telling you when you’re making a mistake or that an idea is ridiculous,” Edwards says, “Knowing that you have a partner like that instills trust and that makes it easier to turn to him when you find yourself in doubt.”

This coming year will be the first of what Park describes as the “2.0” version of the center, with the addition of new staff members timed to address the expected interest generated by the Illinois Grocery Initiative. The additional staff will increase the center’s capacity to provide holistic solutions to tackle the challenges that affect grocers, small producers and growers, and rural communities across the state.

Given the demands on their time, the center’s staff is pragmatic. Kristin Terry, one of the center’s recent hires, who previously worked in economic development for Macomb, Illinois, says that if you’re within 10 or 15 miles of a Walmart or the new iteration of dollar stores that sell groceries, a community cooperative will not be viable, because too many people will still opt for the superstore. In this respect, it’s a Walmart economy, Terry says, and residents are stuck living in it.

While the speed with which Rise Community Market developed is a testament to Park’s work and the efforts of community organizers, the cooperative has faced some setbacks. A set of brand-new cooler cases malfunctioned and a walk-in cooler broke down overnight, leading to product loss and a decline in revenue. However, a USDA grant in combination with community backing and a GoFundMe campaign have helped address such setbacks.

“Fortunately, we have a community that believes in this project and wants to support the store regardless of the struggles we’ve faced,” Edwards says. As volunteer and community-owner support continue to grow, Edwards and the co-op members are optimistic that their store will be able to meet its fundraising and revenue goals. “The most important part of building a community-owned store is getting long-term community buy-in. It doesn’t end with the grand opening,” Edwards says. “You have to be committed to a long-term project.”

That appears to be true on the consulting side, as well. Recently, Park and the VASDC team held a meeting in a community that Park had visited a few years ago and had only found one person interested in the idea of building a cooperative grocer. This time, they found 10.

The post How Illinois Is Bringing Grocery Stores Back to Main Street appeared first on Modern Farmer.

On a cold January morning, Wivholm drives the dirt roads between farms in Sheridan County, where he’s lived for all his 63 years, with practiced ease, pointing out different plots of land by who owns them. And if he doesn’t know the family name, Amy Yoder with the Sheridan County Conservation District or Brooke Johns with the Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge — both sitting in the backseat of his truck — can supply it.

If you look to the right there, Wivholm says, you can see the valley created by the aquifer. Maybe he can, his eyes accustomed to seeing dips and crevasses in, to an unfamiliar eye, a starkly flat landscape. He laughs and says it takes some getting used to.

That aquifer isn’t unique in Montana. There are 12 principal aquifers running like underground rivers throughout the state. But the way Sheridan County uses the water is.

Montana is in relatively good shape as far as its groundwater supply goes, something uncommon across much of the country, geologist John LaFave with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology says. State politicians initiated a groundwater study over 30 years ago after years of intense drought and fires and a lack of data.

But Sheridan County was ahead of the game: The county’s conservation district started studying its groundwater in 1978, before state monitoring began.

In 1996, the district was granted a water reservation, or water allocated for future uses, from the state, which meant it could take a certain share of water from the Clear Lake Aquifer. Because of all the data it gathered through studying its groundwater, the district developed a unique way of using and distributing that water.

What’s unusual is how intentional the collaboration was and how extensive the groundwater monitoring was and continues to be. The district does this by working with farmers, tribes and the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) to ensure water can be used by those who need it — those who would be most affected by any degradation to the water — without negatively impacting the environment.

And it’s worked. The conservation district has been using its geologically special aquifer — a gift granted to this area by the last Ice Age — to irrigate crops, provide jobs for the region and keep agriculture dollars within the community for almost 30 years while fielding few complaints.

“To me, this represents the way groundwater development should occur,” LaFave says.

Sheridan County is extremely rural, home to about 3,500 people across its 1,706 square miles. Agriculture is a big economic driver. Bird hunting is an attraction for locals and visitors. The Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge, located in both Sheridan and Roosevelt Counties and managed by the USFWS, is home to many migratory bird species. It’s the largest pelican breeding ground in Montana and the third-largest in the country.

This early January morning, it’s about five degrees, but there isn’t a lot of snow on the ground. Over coffee and breakfast in Plentywood — the county seat — Yoder and Wivholm say this winter has been warmer and drier than usual.

Dry weather is not uncommon here. Droughts in the 1930s and ’80s were particularly rough. Also in the ’80s, irrigation technology was becoming more common and efficient, Wivholm says, and people began to pay more attention to the possibility of an aquifer as a way to ensure water would be available for irrigation.

“There are several nicknames for much of this property, but it was basically ‘poverty flats,’” Jon Reiten, hydrogeologist with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, says. The soil is sandy, gravelly and drought-prone. Not great for dry-land farming.

Marlowe Onstead was the first farmer in Sheridan County to use the aquifer for his pivot irrigation in 1976.

“Couldn’t raise the crop on it before,” Onstead says. After irrigation, he was able to grow alfalfa.

According to Reiten, the aquifer ranges from a mile to six miles wide and two to three hundred feet deep. The ancestral Missouri River channel, discovered in Sheridan County in 1983 as monitoring began, flowed north into Canada and east into Hudson Bay. That channel was dammed by glaciers in the last Ice Age and left behind a reservoir that was buried as glaciers melted, creating the Clear Lake Aquifer. Since the materials left behind were coarse and varied, water could move easily and be stored in great depths. A downside is that these glacial aquifers can take a long time to refill.

As drought dragged on in the ’80s, locals and county and state authorities set about figuring out the best way to distribute the aquifer’s water. Medicine Lake lies on top of some of the aquifer, and the Big Muddy Creek — where the Fort Peck Tribes require a minimum in-stream flow to promote ecosystem health — is at its southwestern border.

The Fort Peck Tribes and the USFWS were concerned about their respective water levels and how they’d be impacted by irrigation. Reiten says the USFWS was objecting to just about every water rights case that went to the state at the time, and all that litigation ended up in water court.

“That’s a lot to put on a producer, to have to go up against the federal government,” Reiten says.

Negotiations with the USFWS and the Fort Peck Tribes led to the formation of an advisory committee and the transfer of the water reservation on the aquifer from the state to the conservation district. (Per Montana water law, all water belongs to the state and individuals are required to get a water right to use it in a particular way — in this case, for irrigation.) Since then, Sheridan County Conservation District has had the authority to give water allocations from the Clear Lake Aquifer to producers without the producers having to appeal to the state.

The maximum amount of water that can be pulled from the aquifer is just over 15,000 acre feet total, a number set by the state’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. Currently, the district is using about 10,000 acre feet. Increases are allowed as long as monitoring shows the aquifer isn’t being overly impacted by irrigation.

“We were basically forced to monitor it, but it only makes good sense,” Wivholm, who has been on the conservation district board since 1994, explains. The district wouldn’t want to grant someone a right only to find out in five years that there’s not enough water.

Once a year, the committee meets to assess new water rights. The committee includes the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, representatives from the Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge, county commissioners, a county planner, the Fort Peck Tribes and a representative with the United States Geological Survey.

If a farmer wants an irrigation pivot, they have to “pump it hard for 72 hours,” Wivholm says, to make sure there is enough water for their request, and understand how that pumping affects other wells nearby.

Data comes from Yoder’s efforts. She collects readings from data loggers placed in the ground throughout the county from April through October. For the first and last collections, she visits 201 wells and it takes her three 12-hour days to get to them all. Driving around in Wivholm’s truck, she points out some of her data loggers sticking up from the ground every few minutes.

Through monitoring, Sheridan County Conservation District and the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology have been able to map the entire aquifer. They take note of the water levels, monitor each irrigation pivot and can see seasonal fluctuations.

“It’s kind of a hidden resource, but the amount of crops that we can get off of the poor ground that is above the aquifer is amazing,” Yoder says. She lists corn, wheat, chickpeas, lentils, canola, mustard and alfalfa.

Another farmer in the area, Rodney Smith, has been irrigating from the Clear Lake Aquifer for over 35 years and has the biggest pivot connected to the aquifer.

Smith says irrigating has been economically beneficial: His farm isn’t as dependent on the weather, and it’s taken the risk out of production. Smith Farms Incorporated produces hay for livestock and sells it to other ranchers in the area. Smith also leases land out to other farmers who grow potatoes and sugar beets.

From an aerial view, his circular pivot plots show different colors of green and brown, indicating a variety of crops grown.

Smith had an early contested pivot case with the state of Montana, before the water reservation was transferred to the conservation district, which went to the state water court.

The gist of the case was that Smith Farms wanted to change their method of irrigation and the USFWS was concerned it might impact the Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Data and monitoring done by the conservation district backed up Smith’s case.

“When you start irrigating, you wonder what is the capacity, or how much can you irrigate,” Smith says. “It’s always interesting to know what it’s doing.”

Johns, with the wildlife refuge, says the refuge has a water reservation on Medicine Lake and is allowed to keep the lake filled for the protection of migratory birds. The refuge operates dams and diversions to maintain this need. Making sure any irrigation wouldn’t draw down the level of the lake has been a goal from the beginning, Johns says, and so far, that hasn’t been an issue.

There haven’t been any other contested cases on aquifer irrigation, and many, including Smith, see this as a success in having local control over a local resource.

“Water rights are such a contentious thing,” Johns notes. “And without the data, had they not started this years ago, it would be hard to start it today and get the same momentum they did.”

The post An Ancestral River Runs Through It appeared first on Modern Farmer.

On hot summer days, you don’t just see but feel the difference. Tucson’s shadeless neighborhoods, which are predominantly low-income and Latino, soak up the heat. They swelter at summer temperatures that eclipse the city average by 8 degrees Fahrenheit and the Catalina Foothills by 12 degrees. That disparity can be deadly in a city that experienced 40 straight days above 100 degrees last year — heat that’s sure to get worse with climate change.

The good news is there’s a simple way to cool things down: Plant trees. “You’re easily 10 degrees cooler stepping under the shade of a tree,” said Brad Lancaster, an urban forester in Tucson. “It’s dramatically cooler.”

A movement is underway to populate the city’s street corners and vacant lots with groves of trees. Tucson’s city government, which has pledged to plant 1 million trees by 2030, recently got $5 million from the Biden administration to spur the effort — a portion of the $1 billion that the U.S. Forest Service committed last fall to urban and small-scale forestry projects across the United States, aiming to make communities more resilient to climate change and extreme heat.

But in Tucson and many other cities, tree-planting initiatives can tackle a lot more than scorching temperatures. What if Tucson’s million new trees — and the rest of the country’s — didn’t just keep sidewalks cool? What if they helped feed people, too?

That’s what Brandon Merchant hopes will happen on the shadeless south side of Tucson, a city where about one-fifth of the population lives more than a mile from a grocery store. He’s working on a project to plant velvet mesquite trees that thrive in the dry Sonoran Desert and have been used for centuries as a food source. The mesquite trees’ seed pods can be ground into a sweet, protein-rich flour used to make bread, cookies, and pancakes. Merchant, who works at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, sees cultivating mesquite around the city and surrounding areas as an opportunity to ease both heat and hunger. The outcome could be a network of  “food forests,” community spaces where volunteers tend fruit trees and other edible plants for neighbors to forage.

“Thinking about the root causes of hunger and the root causes of health issues, there are all these things that tie together: lack of green spaces, lack of biodiversity,” Merchant said. (The food bank received half a million dollars from the Biden administration through the Inflation Reduction Act.)

Merchant’s initiative fits into a national trend of combining forestry — and Forest Service funding — with efforts to feed people. Volunteers, school teachers, and urban farmers in cities across the country are planting fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, and other edible plants in public spaces to create shade, provide access to green space, and supply neighbors with free and healthy food. These food forests, forest gardens, and edible parks have sprouted up at churches, schools, empty lots, and street corners in numerous cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, and Miami.

“It’s definitely growing in popularity,” said Cara Rockwell, who researches agroforestry and sustainable food systems at Florida International University. “Food security is one of the huge benefits.”

There are also numerous environmental benefits: Trees improve air quality, suck carbon from the atmosphere, and create habitat for wildlife, said Mikaela Schmitt-Harsh, an urban forestry expert at James Madison University in Virginia. “I think food forests are gaining popularity alongside other urban green space efforts, community gardens, green rooftops,” she added. “All of those efforts, I think, are moving us in a positive direction.”

Researchers say food forests are unlikely to produce enough food to feed everyone in need of it. But Schmitt-Harsh said they could help supplement diets, especially in neighborhoods that are far from grocery stores. “A lot has to go into the planning of where the food forest is, when the fruits are harvestable, and whether the harvestable fruits are equitably distributed.”

She pointed to the Philadelphia Orchard Project as an emblem of success. That nonprofit has partnered with schools, churches, public recreation centers, and urban farms to oversee some 68 community orchards across the city. Their network of orchards and food forests generated more than 11,000 pounds of fresh produce last year, according to Phil Forsyth, co-executive director of the nonprofit.

Some of the sites in Philadelphia have only three or four trees. Others have over 100, said Kim Jordan, the organization’s other executive director. “We’re doing a variety of fruit and nut trees, berry bushes and vines, pollinator plants, ground cover, perennial vegetables — a whole range of things,” Jordan said.

The community food bank in Tucson started its project in 2021, when it bought six shade huts to shelter saplings. Each hut can house dozens of baby trees, which are grown in bags and irrigated until they become sturdy enough to be planted in the ground. Over the past three years, Merchant has partnered with a high school, a community farm, and the Tohono O’odham tribal nation to nurse, plant, and maintain the trees. So far they’ve only put a few dozen saplings in the ground, and Merchant aims to ramp up efforts with a few hundred more plantings this year. His initial goal, which he described as “lofty and ambitious,” is to plant 20,000 trees by 2030.

The food bank is also organizing workshops on growing, pruning, and harvesting, as well as courses on cooking with mesquite flour. And they’ve hosted community events, where people bring seed pods to pound into flour — a process that requires a big hammer mill that isn’t easy to use on your own, Merchant said. Those events feature a mesquite-pancake cook-off, using the fresh flour.

Merchant is drawing on a model of tree-planting that Lancaster, the urban forester, has been pioneering for 30 years in a downtown neighborhood called Dunbar Spring. That area was once as barren as much of southern Tucson, but a group of volunteers led by Lancaster — who started planting velvet mesquite and other native trees in 1996 — has built up an impressive canopy. Over three decades, neighborhood foresters have transformed Dunbar Spring’s bald curbsides into lush forests of mesquite, hackberry, cholla and prickly pear cactus, and more — all plants that have edible parts.

“There are over 400 native food plants in the Sonoran Desert, so we tapped into that,” Lancaster said. “That’s what we focused our planting on.”

The Dunbar Spring food forest is now what Lancaster calls a “living pantry.” He told Grist that up to a quarter of the food he eats — and half of what he feeds his Nigerian dwarf goats — is harvested from plants in the neighborhood’s forest. “Those percentages could be much more if I were putting more time into the harvests.” The more than 1,700 trees and shrubs planted by Lancaster’s group have also stored a ton of water — a precious commodity in the Sonoran Desert — by slurping up an estimated 1 million gallons of rainwater that otherwise would have flowed off the pavement into storm drains.

Another well-established food forest skirts the Old West Church in Boston, where volunteers have spent a decade transforming a city lawn into a grove of apple, pear, and cherry trees hovering over vegetable, pollinator, and herb gardens. Their produce — ranging from tomatoes and eggplants to winter melons — gets donated to Women’s Lunch Place, a local shelter for women without permanent housing, according to Karen Spiller, a professor of sustainable food systems at the University of New Hampshire and a member of Old West Church who helps with the project.

“It’s open for harvest at any time,” Spiller said. “It’s not, ‘Leave a dollar, and pick an apple.’ You can pick your apple, and eat your apple.”

Merchant wants to apply the same ethic in Tucson: mesquite pods for all to pick — and free pancakes after a day staying cool in the shade.

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

The post Hot? Hungry? Step Inside These Food Forests appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Graphic Journalist Nhatt Nichols takes us to West Virginia, where comparable changes to the SNAP program were made back in 2018, to explore the outlook for people facing food insecurity and the communities they call home.

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post How Will New Work Requirements for SNAP Benefits Affect Food Insecurity, Employment? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Among those benefits, growing food in backyards, community gardens or urban farms can shrink the distance fruits and vegetables have to travel between producers and consumers – what’s known as the “food mile” problem. With transportation’s greenhouse gas emissions eliminated, it’s a small leap to assume that urban agriculture is a simple climate solution.

But is urban agriculture really as climate-friendly as many people think?

Our team of researchers partnered with individual gardeners, community garden volunteers and urban farm managers at 73 sites across five countries in North America and Europe to test this assumption.

We found that urban agriculture, while it has many community benefits, isn’t always better for the climate than conventional agriculture over the life cycle, even with transportation factored in. In fact, on average, the urban agriculture sites we studied were six times more carbon intensive per serving of fruit or vegetables than conventional farming.

However, we also found several practices that stood out for how effectively they can make fruits and vegetables grown in cities more climate-friendly.

What makes urban ag more carbon-intensive?

Most research on urban agriculture has focused on a single type of urban farming, often high-tech projects, such as aquaponic tanks, rooftop greenhouses or vertical farms. Electricity consumption often means the food grown in these high-tech environments has a big carbon footprint.

We looked instead at the life cycle emissions of more common low-tech urban agriculture – the kind found in urban backyards, vacant lots and urban farms.

Our study, published Jan. 22, 2024, modeled carbon emissions from farming activities like watering and fertilizing crops and from building and maintaining the farms. Surprisingly, from a life cycle emissions perspective, the most common source at these sites turned out to be infrastructure. From raised beds to sheds and concrete pathways, this gardening infrastructure means more carbon emissions per serving of produce than the average wide-open fields on conventional farms.

However, among the 73 sites in cities including New York, London and Paris, 17 had lower emissions than conventional farms. By exploring what set these sites apart, we identified some best practices for shrinking the carbon footprint of urban food production.

1) Make use of recycled materials, including food waste and water

Using old building materials for constructing farm infrastructure, such as raised beds, can cut out the climate impacts of new lumber, cement and glass, among other materials. We found that upcycling building materials could cut a site’s emissions 50% or more.

On average, our sites used compost to replace 95% of synthetic nutrients. Using food waste as compost can avoid both the methane emissions from food scraps buried in landfills and the need for synthetic fertilizers made from fossil fuels. We found that careful compost management could cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 40%.

Capturing rainwater or using greywater from shower drains or sinks can reduce the need for pumping water, water treatment and water distribution. Yet we found that few sites used those techniques for most of their water.

2) Grow crops that are carbon-intensive when grown by conventional methods

Tomatoes are a great example of crops that can cut emissions when grown with low-tech urban agriculture. Commercially, they are often grown in large-scale greenhouses that can be particularly energy-intensive. Asparagus and other produce that must be transported by airplane because they spoil quickly are another example with a large carbon footprint.

By growing these crops instead of buying them in stores, low-tech urban growers can reduce their net carbon impact.

3) Keep urban gardens going long term

Cities are constantly changing, and community gardens can be vulnerable to development pressures. But if urban agriculture sites can remain in place for many years, they can avoid the need for new infrastructure and keep providing other benefits to their communities.

Urban agriculture sites provide ecosystem services and social benefits, such as fresh produce, community building and education. Urban farms also create homes for bees and urban wildlife, while offering some protection from the urban heat island effect. The practice of growing food in cities is expected to continue expanding in the coming years, and many cities are looking to it as a key tool for climate adaptation and environmental justice. We believe that with careful site design and improved land use policy, urban farmers and gardeners can boost their benefit both to people nearby and the planet as a whole.

Jason Hawes is a Ph.D. Candidate in Resource Policy and Behavior at the University of Michigan; Benjamin Goldstein is Assistant Professor of Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan, and Joshua Newell is Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Urban Agriculture isn’t as Climate-Friendly as It Seems. These Best Practices Can Help. appeared first on Modern Farmer.