As it rots, it emits methane, a greenhouse gas that for the first 20 years of its life in the atmosphere has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. What’s worse is that while all that edible food percolates in the dump, one in eight American adults is experiencing food insecurity.

But like many modern-day problems, there’s an app for that. 

These apps connect farmers, restaurants, and grocery stores that have extra food that might otherwise go to waste, with folks who bring it back into circulation. “If some of these apps can change how we think about food and can include educational components and resources, this may help their customers spread the word about the importance of reducing food waste,” says Dr. Tammara Soma, director of research for Simon Fraser University’s Food Systems Lab.

Too Good to Go

Too Good to Go’s app is a location-based service free for download in every Canadian province and in 30 cities across the US from New York to Phoenix. “What users in one community will see differs from what someone 40 miles away in another city will see,” says Sarah Soteroff, senior public relations manager for Too Good to Go Canada and the United States.

The app user finds restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, and donut shops within their own neighborhoods that, at the end of the day, find themselves with a surplus. The retailer may not want to store the food overnight, and, sometimes, food regulations prevent the reheating of day-old restaurant meals that makes those three leftover slices of pizza unsaleable. 

“It’s based on the surplus of that day and what the store has. It’s unpredictable, so we make it a surprise bag,” says Soteroff. It could, for example, be three dozen donuts divided into four to a bag. Too Good to Go makes $1.99 from the purchase of each bag, and it recommends bags sell for between $3.99 and $9.99. The products in the bag are usually, according to Soteroff, discounted by a third of the original price. 

The app keeps track of how much money the user has saved by buying food destined for the landfill as compared to what it would cost at full price. “Apps like these,” says Soma, “may help restaurants reduce the amount of food that is wasted at the end of the day, especially when people are motivated by cheaper prices.”

The app launched in Denmark in 2016, and it now has 90 million users globally. It has saved American consumers an estimated $127 million on food they otherwise would have bought at full price, and it has earned $41 million for businesses that otherwise would have tossed food away. 

Every time a surprise bag is sold, 2.5 kilograms of Co2 equivalent (Co2e) is diverted from the landfill and atmosphere, with approximately 35 million kg of Co2e diverted in the US. The app personalizes this for the user, by providing a running tally of the CO2e they’ve kept out of the landfill through the purchase of surprise bags and, subsequently, the difference they’ve individually made to global warming. 

Food Rescue US

In 2011, one in seven Connecticut households was experiencing food insecurity, while more than 36 million tons of food was being tossed out across the US. This didn’t make sense to Jeff Schacher, a software developer, and Kevin Mullins, a local pastor, from Fairfax County, Connecticut. They founded Community Plates (now Food Rescue US) and created a model of food rescue that depicts the true meaning of the adage “waste not, want not.”

“We were born out of a problem and a solution,” says James Hart, development director for Food Rescue US.

Businesses agree to donate food, and not-for-profit social service organizations such as shelters, soup kitchens, and food pantries agree to take it. The app’s secret to success is the volunteers who sign up to rescue food and deliver it to the organizations in need. The app gives detailed instructions on where to pick up the food and where to take it. Anyone can sign into the app and claim a food recovery in their area.

For Jenna von Elling, a parent volunteer at Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church Virginia, Food Rescue US has made a huge difference to her school community. “At the start of the pandemic, we wondered how we were going to keep the school pantry stocked for families,” she says. After a quick Google search, she discovered Food Rescue US and the pantry has not been without food since.

Twice a week, von Elling and her fellow food rescuers fill two SUVs full of food they claim and recover from the local Target grocery store. What they bring back to the school pantry includes produce that is nearing the end of its grocery store shelf life but is still edible. There are also chicken breasts and other meat nearing best-before dates to boxes of diapers that are damaged. 

Since its founding, the organization has expanded to 23 states, provided 152 million meals to those in need, kept 183 million pounds of excess food out of landfills, and boasts 20,000 volunteer food rescues.

Misfits Market

Misfits tackles food loss at the beginning of its life cycle, including, what Rose Hartley, head of sustainability for Misfits, calls “cosmetically challenged” produce. 

“What we have been hearing from farmers,” she says, “is that they need an outlet to be able to sell this produce.” 

Misfits buys the twisted zucchini, the sunburnt cauliflower, and the pepper that’s grown into a cylinder instead of a bell, and makes the produce available via the app in the form of a food box delivered directly to the user’s doorstep. Subscribers can expect a 30-percent savings compared to food bought at the grocery store.

Sign into the app, anywhere in the contiguous US, and subscribe to a weekly or bi-weekly box, or choose a flex plan to shop as needed. Boxes also contain rejected shelf products—maybe the packaging is crinkled, or the printing of the label is slightly off-center, and, therefore, rejected by the store.

“We are trying to fill that gap that buyers back out of,” says Hartley. “The hope and the dream is that we create a different conception of what good food looks like.”

She admits though that change of this scale could take decades. In the meantime, Misfits continues to recover unwanted food. In 2023, it prevented 26, 444,000 pounds of food from going to waste across the US.

The post On the Ground With Apps Preventing Food Waste appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Buoys are a key component of aquaculture and fisheries—there are hundreds of thousands used in the United States alone. The buoy market, already a multi-billion-dollar industry, continues to expand by 5.5 percent each year thanks to increased interest in aquaculture farming. These buoyant orbs come in all shapes and sizes and help to moor lines, mark objects, and signal navigation. In the long history of ocean farming and exploration, we’ve used wooden buoys, cork ones, and iron ones. But today, the majority of buoys on the ocean are made from styrofoam or other polystyrene and polyethylene plastic compounds. There are thousands of buoys in use for weather and navigation alone, and every lobsterman and oyster farmer uses several dozen at a minimum.

Lost plastic buoys float on the currents and join the tonnes of plastics that now cover as much as 40 percent of the world’s seas. Bits and pieces of plastic buoys break off or disintegrate in the ocean sun, joining billions of pieces of microplastics that end up in our seafood.

You cannot have aquaculture without buoys—but you can have buoys without plastic. Sue Van Hook had a lifetime of expertise in fungi when she joined Ecovative Design as the mycologist in 2007. Ecovative Design is a technology company focused on using mycelium—the fine white vegetative filaments of fungus—to solve human needs. After discovering early on in her research that mycelium would float, Van Hook quickly realized the potential for creating buoys.

“My grandfather turned his lobster buoys on a lathe in the ‘50s and ‘60s on North Haven Island,” says Van Hook say, remembering her very first introduction to aquaculture’s wooden floatation devices. “I watched him do all that, all those years ago, and we helped paint the colors on and all of that stuff. And then I watched the whole ocean turn to Styrofoam, which at the time seemed fine, right? It was cheaper. They didn’t have to go through all of that labor of crafting this beautiful thing individually, and they lasted a long time.”

As an adult, Van Hook had become a professor of environmental studies and focused on mycology, which she taught at Skidmore College for 18 years. Now observing the buoyancy of mycelium, it didn’t take her long to remember her grandfather’s lobster buoys and their shift to Styrofoam—and to realize the environmental impact of an ocean full of Styrofoam buoys. She set to work designing and growing mycelium buoys.

Now the founder and CEO of her own company, Mycobuoys™, Van Hook has pioneered the fungus alternative to plastic buoys. To make her buoys, Van Hook will take a rope of pasteurized hemp and inoculate it with a low percentage of mycelium wood rot fungus. The fungus will then grow, spread and take up whatever space it is given to fill. Originally, she used empty soda bottles, and today, she has prototypes up to the size of mooring buoys more than two feet in diameter.

Van Hook has run into challenges finding the perfect fungus for the job, and she continues to work on the durability of the buoys. “We use wood rot fungus,” she says, explaining that the type of mycelium that creates sturdier, more perennial mushrooms like reishi is more suited to the job than the lawn fungus that grows many culinary mushrooms. She has tested dozens of strains of fungus, and she continues to work through varieties in buoy trials.

Currently, Van Hook’s Mycobuoys™ are being tested at 11 oyster farms, shellfish hatcheries, and ocean schools throughout New England and New York. Her goal is to be able to guarantee the buoys for a full season before offering them for retail sale.

Abigail Barrows was one of the first oyster farmers to trial Van Hook’s Mycobuoys™. Barrows has a background in marine biology and studies ocean microplastics. In 2015, she bought the lease on Deer Isle Oyster Company with a goal of turning it into a plastic-free oyster farm.

“We were blown away by the process,” Barrows says of her early experiences with mycelium buoys. “It was really exciting to grow something and then have this product which is so functional. And we were pretty excited about the potential application as we started our sea trials.”

The greatest challenge for Mycobuoys™ and those trialing the buoys is their durability. In addition to their hard plastic bodies, many of today’s buoys have thick toxic paint shells. To create a durable shell for a Mycobuoy™, both Van Hook and Barrows have experimented with natural paints that will protect the buoys from the sun, curious birds, and the hard use inherent in ocean farming.

“We are still looking for a more rugged coating,” explains Barrows, who has used pine tar and linseed coatings and linseed based paints on the buoys. “That would give them more robustness, because boats are going to bang into them, so we need to protect them for more than a season.”

“We are trying to find that beautifully environmentally friendly coating to prolong the life of the buoys,” says Van Hook. Today’s plastic lobster buoys do not last forever—at least not as functional aquaculture tools. Most lobstermen and oyster farmers will use a buoy for 20 or 25 years. Van Hook’s goal for Mycobuoy™ durability is a little bit shorter.

“My ideal business plan is that we grow the buoys every year,” she says. “You buy your buoys at a reasonable price, you have it out there floating your cages for a year, and at the end, we buy it back from you and dry it, grind it ourselves for fertilizer or you could compost them in your own garden.” Van Hook uses old mycelium buoy prototypes in her garden, where she never has to add fertilizer or composite thanks to the nutrition of the fungus. 

“You wouldn’t have to store [the buoys] in your driveway or your yard,” Van Hook continues, referring to the large piles of buoys that spring up on fishermen’s lawns during the off-season, “where all that UV light deteriorates the polyethylene plastic that they are currently using faster.” 

Recent legislation in South Korea will ban the use of styrofoam buoys by 2025, and Van Hook believes that other nations will soon follow. Van Hook hopes her buoys will retail around 10 percent to 20 percent above current plastic buoy prices and believes increasing restrictions on plastics will only make the mycelium option for buoys more appealing. Styrofoam and plastic buoys average between $20 and $50, depending on size, while the cost of Van Hook’s buoys will depend on the ability to scale up production and the solution to the problem of a durable coating. Those interested in helping Van Hook trial Mycobuoys™ can reach out to her via her website for 2025 buoys.

As oyster farmers such as Barrows continue to trial buoys and Van Hook expands to more shapes and sizes, the future of Mycobuoys™ is bright. On her quest to reduce ocean plastics, Van Hook may have stumbled on to an answer for more than just buoys.

“There is just so much potential here,” says Barrows. Plastics can be found in almost all fishing gear, from nets to floatation systems in boats. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is almost half what is called “ghost gear,” fishing plastics lost overboard or abandoned. In addition to Mycobuoys™, Barrows works on prototypes of wooden oyster cages, and she sells her oysters in compostable beechwood bags from a new company called Ocean Farm Supply. “We need to think outside of the box, in terms of using them for mooring balls, other kinds of floatation, other marine systems such as replacing styrofoam boat hulls and marine docks.”

The post Meet the Mycologist Stopping Ocean Plastics, One Mushroom Buoy at a Time 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.

“Trout need lots of clean, fresh oxygen to thrive,” says Walker, 34. Some grass is good, but too much can deplete dissolved oxygen, slow waterflow and clog drains, “which stresses the fish. And calm fish are healthy fish; healthy fish are delicious fish.” 

This is part of Walker’s annual maintenance routine at Smoke In Chimneys trout farm, which opened in 2019. He’ll spend the day weeding and cleaning, then harvest the remaining fish in the next week or so. The pond then gets a break from production to naturally incorporate or filter out excess nutrients from the ecosystem. In the fall, it will again be loaded with thousands of baby trout. They’ll start their lives here, then cycle through a dozen similar impoundments—that together hold more than 20,000 fish at various stages of maturation—for about two years until they’re ready for harvest. 

“It takes a stupid amount of labor to do it this way compared to big commercial aquaculture operations,” says Walker. “But this is the only way to raise trout that consistently taste like they’ve been pulled fresh out a mountain stream.” 

That’s because the pond is part of a restored, 1930s US Department of the Interior gravity-fed trout hatchery and research facility in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains that was abandoned in the early 1990s due to budget cuts and remoteness. Here, there are no electric pumps, plastic tanks, antibiotics, mechanical agitators, recirculated water, chemical additives or computer monitoring. Water comes from a pristine, 54-degree spring that gushes from the bedrock at 2,000 gallons a minute. It is carried to the ponds through a series of pipes and concrete raceways that mimic natural trout streams, then empties into an adjacent creek. The shale-bottom impoundments are lined with native plants, surrounded by pollinator gardens and selectively managed forest. They’re filled with naturally occurring microbes, insects, amphibians and crustaceans. Walker and two employees hand-survey populations monthly for signs of illness or stress. They harvest and process about 400 whole trout a week, then pack them in coolers for shipping to restaurants and individual customers.

“There are a lot of small-scale trout producers in the US, but this is truly a diamond-in-the-rough situation,” says freshwater aquaculture researcher and current US Trout Farmers Association president Jesse Trushenski. Most similar facilities either vanished during the big-ag-fueled Blue Revolution of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s or are still used to supplement native wild trout populations for fishing. Then there’s the production side: The nation’s largest commercial producer—Boise, Idaho-based Riverence—churns out more than 22 million pounds of trout a year compared to Smoke In Chimney’s give-or-take 120,000.

This is a small, extremely high-end facility operating on historic infrastructure, says Trushenski. “If other commercial facilities [like the Walker’s] exist, there can’t be more than one or two.”

Walker also touts Smoke In Chimney’s sustainability versus typical fish-focused commercial aquaculture farms. On one hand, he likens his farm’s production methods to the inland freshwater equivalency of regenerative livestock farming. 

“This approach is without a doubt going to affect a net positive environmental impact,” says Trushenski. The system acts like a natural waterway, using gravity and hydrostatic pressure to move perfectly balanced water from a limestone aquifer. It requires no electricity or additives to operate. It’s effectively a restored habitat for depleted natural fish populations where, like rotational grazing, trout cycle through different impoundments as they grow and mature, nurturing their needs while playing a supportive role in the overall ecosystem. A percentage of newly hatched fish escapes into the nearby stream, bolstering habitat and wild populations. 

Meanwhile, more farm-raised trout on the market means less extractionary pressure on local streams. It also helps balance the increasing gap in wild-caught seafood production due to overfishing, climate change and human population growth.

“This is an ecological win-win,” says Trushenski. “You’re boosting stream health and native fish populations while making inroads on a problem that is only going to get worse with time.” 

Walker appreciates sustainability and historic novelty—and leverages both to market and tell the story of his trout—but he’s more concerned with the quality of product the method yields. And testimonies back up his claims. 

“There’s this rich, nutty, buttery decadence. It tastes clean and refreshing, like spring water,” says Patrick Pervola, research and development chef at Michelin-starred Washington D.C. eatery, Albi. “This is some of the best fish I’ve tasted in my career. It rewrites what you think of as possible for farm-raised fish.”

But despite all the benefits—and roughly 2,900 miles of native wild trout streams—Smoke In Chimneys is one of about three other commercial trout farms in Virginia. And the others are tiny by comparison and sell almost exclusively to family friends or at local farmer’s markets. That means, by Trushenski’s estimate, about 95 percent of trout consumed in Virginia comes from production strongholds like Idaho, Washington or North Carolina. 

She says the problem stems from issues around education. 

First, most seafood consumers have never tasted wild-caught or truly healthy farm-raised trout, and that lack of exposure leads to decreased demand. Second, Virginia focuses aquatic agricultural resources on marine seafood, so there are no dedicated high school or collegiate-level educational programs for inland freshwater aquaculture. And would-be farmers can’t pursue opportunities they don’t know about.

“To put it into perspective: When I started out, I called around to agricultural extension offices at [the state’s leading universities] and there was literally nobody there that could tell me anything useful about farm-raised trout,” says Walker. “I had to rely on old books from the 1930s I dug up on eBay, rangers working at hatcheries, farmers in other states and trial-and-error to figure it out.”

But Walker remains undaunted. He and wife, Shannon, spent a year sifting through regulatory red tape and launched a small USDA-inspected processing plant near the farm. They work tirelessly on social media and with restaurateurs to educate eaters about the virtues of healthy, farm-raised trout. 

Walker has also joined the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Aquaculture Advisory Board and is in talks with administrators at the new Virginia Tech Aquaculture and Seafood Production Facility. He’s using the position and access to advocate for increased resources around gravity-fed inland freshwater aquaculture. He envisions a future where Smoke In Chimneys has expanded to include one to two dozen sister farms and helped dramatically increase trout consumption throughout the state and Mid-Atlantic. 

We have “the natural resources and the market potential is there,” says Walker, noting $67.5 million in USDA-reported 2018 sales at farms in the top two US trout-producing states alone. “All we need is the support to help us get the ball rolling and tap into that potential. And I don’t plan to quit until that happens. I want to remind Virginians why trout is our state fish.”

The post Meet the Modern Trout Farmer Using Gravity to His Advantage appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Yet, it’s not the same for all crops, everywhere. Each spring, along a hidden dirt road in northern Maine, my mother squats calve-deep in ditch muck to gather the edible, curled fronds of the ostrich fern, a delicacy that appears year after year regardless of rain, drought or fungus. While small-scale farms increasingly rely upon innovative technology to hedge their bets on a harvestable crop—think Kernza, complicated, mechanical planters or expensive, hybrid seeds—native, perennial crops, like my mother’s fiddleheads, persist regardless of an erratic growing season. This begs the question—what if annual crops can’t offer us the sustainable future we, as farmers and consumers, need? 

Finding an old way to farm

Mark Shepard’s New Forest Farm enterprise is built upon what he calls restoration agriculture: growing perennial food crops in a way that mimics native ecological systems. “We need to trust natural plant communities because they’re tried and true. They’ve done alright through just about every disaster that’s been thrown their way,” says Shepard. 

Native, perennial plant species—such as fiddleheads—are often better equipped to succeed than non-native, annual plants because they’ve evolved within an ecosystem for millennia. Native plants thrive with fewer or no inputs and, due to genetic diversity, are better equipped to survive in our changing climate. Because of this, landscaping with native species is already widely popular. 

Start with small changes

Farmers don’t need to make a whole-sale switch to native species to reap ecological benefits while tapping into an emerging, native-plant market. Small changes, such as converting a single, sub-prime field into a food forest,where a selection of diverse edible plants are grown mimicking the structure of a forest, can be effective. Shepard’s New Forest Farm began with annual crops and transitioned to perennial crops over time. 

Native species can also be included in techniques that many sustainability-minded farmers already employ. For example, hedgerows could be planted with species of American hazelnut, with the small, harvested crop offered in community-supported agriculture boxes or at farmer’s markets. 

Don Tipping of Siskiyou Seeds offers small quantities of unique crops—some of which are native plants—at farmer’s markets and sells them to customers, who are intrigued by the novel product. Although the success of a product can be hit or miss, as with products at any farmer’s market, sometimes, Tipping’s products sell out, with customers asking for them at the next market. He plans to experiment soon with plant-infused beverages. 

In addition, because native plant species support more biodiversity than non-natives, farmers looking to attract beneficial insects for pollination and pest control could plant alley crops of native species that provide food for pollinators and humans, such as sunchokes. 

Expand on silvopasture techniques

Much of the shift that farmers must make to incorporate native plants as food crops relies more on mindset than technique. For example, take silvopasture, which is a method of integrating foraging livestock and wooded areas. Farmers such as Kirsten Marra and Chris Wellington of Muddy Roots Farm use silvopasture practices to help feed and shelter livestock. In such a system, oaks and other nut trees are already key. “We know where all our hardwood stands are in the woods, so we choose our ends [of the pasture rotation] to finish the pigs under the nut trees. Tree nuts are high in fat and contribute to nice marbling of the meat; the unsaturated fatty acids help increase flavor and juiciness. They are also a good source of carbohydrates and protein. They’re very good for the animals, and they create a nice fat-cap or fat layer,” says Marra. 

In their woodland and field pasture system, the pigs are happier, fatter and healthier, all while eating far less grain—about two buckets a day for 10 pigs—which Marra and Wellington say the pigs don’t touch until yummier foods (including annual vegetable scraps) are gone. But this system also helps the environment. The pigs are rotated frequently to prevent any damage to the land, and their wallowing creates vernal pools, their foot traffic presses seeds into the soil and their munching keeps invasive species in check. 

To take a system like this one step further, creative farmers can use trees to produce crops for livestock and people—and not just using acorns or chestnuts. For example, linden tree leaves are great in salads, and their fruit and flowers make a unique (and delicate) chocolate substitute. 

A new market

While demand for native plant foods is different from that of annual agricultural crops, a market does exist. Elderberries are particularly trendy, but other native, perennial crops such as sunchokes, pawpaws and even chestnuts are also popular. Still others—such as hazelnuts, ramps and mushrooms—are already in demand at farmer’s markets and by wholesalers alike. 

On a national level, websites such as Foraged offer farmers an opportunity to reach a wider audience, with some of the website’s popular crops including boysenberries and American Ginseng. 

Using these native, perennial foods instead of annual crops often amounts to a simple substitution, such as frying fiddleheads instead of asparagus, using mashed sunchokes instead of mashed potatoes or using pawpaws in place of bananas in bread. 

Long term changes 

Changes in our food system must come at the policy level, but some of these changes are happening already. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) now recognizes the importance of agroforestry techniques by offering agroforestry grants and funding. More recently, the US Office of Global Food Security released its Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils, which advocates for returning to more traditional crops that grow better in certain climates. 

Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home and other books, worries that farmers will over-spray native plant crops and thus mitigate any environmental benefits. But if we work to change consumers’ expectations for Instagrammable, blemish-free food and restore our environments with healthy, resilient plants, we can find a balance between harvest and hope for the future of agriculture. 

This isn’t a utopian dream. Consumers’ increased interest in hyper-local foods and regenerative, sustainable agriculture offers support for new ways of farming. Plus, changes in perspective can occur on a crop-by-crop basis as innovative farmers showcase unconventional, native plant foods, even if those foods aren’t staple, dinner-table commodities right now. A great example of crop success is kale, which was once a mere garnish but is now a popular superfood. 

With agriculture facing more climate pressure, tenuous land access and fewer resources than ever before, now is the time to make small or farm-wide changes toward planting native, perennial species as crops, even if the path forward seems untraditional or unusual. 

Says Chris Wellington of Muddy Roots farm, “They called us crazy for wanting to raise pigs in the woods.” 

The post Fiddleheads, Not Spinach appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In part, this is due to the dearth of American-made tools. While John Deere and some other tractor brands are manufactured in the US, their tractors are notoriously expensive. And for many years, farmers were obligated to buy only licensed parts and use only certified repair shops to work on their equipment. For cash-strapped farmers, the inability to service their own equipment was often a crushing financial blow. Although there have recently been reforms to this policy because of “right-to repair” advocacy, many farmers are still distrustful of these large manufacturers. There are also precious few locally made options for hand tools that are more suited to a homestead or small human-scale farm. 

If we want a future with more farmers, more fresh, healthy food and stronger local economies, we need infrastructure that supports small growers. Locally made tools, from hoes to tractors, are an important part of that support system and confer many of the same advantages as locally grown food. Meet three US-based toolmakers who want to change the landscape of tool buying and making to better support their local farmers and communities.

Conor Crickmore, Neversink Tools, Claryville, NY

Conor Crickmore is a farmer, first and foremost. At Neversink Farm, he works 1.3 acres of highly productive organic vegetables with help from a handful of part-time employees. Many folks know Crickmorefrom his popular series of farming instructional videos. These videos grew out of projects that were started for fun and, eventually, spurred on by positive feedback, grew into extensive informational courses. Crickmore described a similarly organic progression when establishing his tool business, which started in his garage. “On my farm, there were just certain tools we needed. We were not intending to start a business; we just wanted to cover the costs of making them,” he says. But demand for his tools was high and, six years later, Neversink tools employs seven people in a shop outfitted with specialized equipment such as composite molds and a metal-stamping setup. 

Because Neversink Tools manufactures the tools it sells, it has e the flexibility to constantly tinker with design and update tools quickly. One of its most popular tools, the patented Mutineer hoe, features a system of interchangeable heads so farmers can choose the one best suited to cultivate in every condition. The lightweight heads can be carried on a carabiner, making it ideal for human-scale farms. 

The Neversink team focuses on improving or upgrading existing tools or making specialized tools that fill a need on small intensive-production farms. “If we are going to make something that’s already out there, we are solving a problem. We don’t make something just because.”

All the work at Neversink Farm is guided by the ethos of constant improvement. There is a beautiful optimism in all of its content that tells farmers that they, too, can be successful and run a profitable business. “Farmers are creating incredible businesses and complicated infrastructures that support their hard work,” says Crickmore. 

Seth Pauley, Red Pig Tools, West Linn, OR

Pauley is a blacksmith who forges his tools with an anvil and hammer, using equal parts artistry and strength. Pauley makes all the Red Pig products by hand with help from a couple of apprentices who are learning the art of smithing. Many of the designs are taken from old-world tools that are hundreds or thousands of years old, although Pauley also makes custom orders upon request.

Red Pig tools are designed to withstand the hard work of producing food. Handles for its hoes and other tools can be chosen to match the user’s height and can be easily replaced. Pauley hopes to disrupt the disposable consumer mindset and empower folks to service their own tools and take pride in artfully made objects, just as they take pride in their gardens. He recognizes that his tools are more expensive than the same item from a box store, but he says that, over time, the value is greater. “You can get a good tool that can last you a lifetime… You can sharpen it. You may even learn to use a welding rig… There’s a lot of things you can learn to do to make a good tool last.” To support folks along this journey, Pauley makes himself available for phone calls and shop visits and tirelessly educates folks at garden shows and other venues.

He emphasizes that well-designed, well-built hand tools can help reduce the barrier to entry for small farmers, for whom tractors and power equipment can be financially out of reach. “You don’t have to be limited by the cost of the equipment,” he says. “You don’t have to play the same game as the bigger farms.” 

He, too, is optimistic about the future of sustainable farming. “I am seeing a lot of younger people who are more interested in growing things and doing something outside of a traditional 9-5 office job,” says Pauley. “There’s a lot of people who are interested in doing things or making things and that’s only gaining traction.” 

Horace Green, Ronnie Baugh Tractors, Paint Rock, AL

At 89 years old, Horace Green sees his tool company as a part of a wider picture that can help bring back small, productive rural economies. Growing up in rural Alabama, Green remembers how the transition from mule to mechanization helped small farmers. But he also keenly recalls how the “go big or go home” era of ag policy decimated rural communities. He emphasizes finding the right tool for the right scale. Ronnie Baugh offers lightweight, tractors that can be customized by their width, height and center of gravity. 

Even in the US, the price of a full-size tractor is still out of reach for many small-scale farmers. Smaller, two-wheel tractors as well as hand-push tool carriers are in development at the shop. A former software engineer, Green firmly believes in open-source design and is committed to the right to repair. The new products are made using common parts such as bicycle wheels, which will allow farmers to source, build and repair components themselves. These push-driven cultivators can be upgraded using a bicycle motor and the adjustable toolbar can be swapped over to a larger two-wheel tractor. While the barrier to entry is low, the company still prioritizes quality. “We build for the life of the farmer, not the life of the product,” says Green. 

The post On the Ground With Toolmakers Helping Small Farmers Keep it Local appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Now ranchers around the country are trialing a new technology, virtual fencing, to manage animals and their land. A Norwegian company called Nofence is one of the first companies making this fence available to ranchers in the United States. There are several other systems also piloting their products, including Vence, eShepherd and Corral Technologies. 

Virtual fencing supplies ranchers with a collar solar or battery charged and uses a web-based app to remotely monitor and control where livestock graze. The rancher can use a smartphone, tablet or computer to draw paddock boundaries, and the collars are equipped with GPS to track the animals’ movements throughout the day. If an animal approaches the boundary, they receive an auditory warning that intensifies as they get closer. When the animal crosses the boundary, it receives an electric pulse that is less intense than that of an electric fence. 

The technology was designed to improve environmental and economic outcomes for livestock operations, while also reducing labor costs for ranchers and maintaining animal welfare. For those trialing virtual fencing products across the country, it’s achieved more. 

“I think it’s the future and there’s a ton of potential,” says Aaron Steele, founder and co-owner of mobile grazing company Goats on the Go. “To be able to do things like graze a small hilltop for four hours and not eliminate all of the vegetative cover, it opens up an opportunity we never had before.”

Environmental benefits

Regenerative grazing—or closely managing where and for how long animals forage—is a farming practice that can improve soil health and plant diversity. Ranchers think virtual fencing helps them be more efficient. Each new boundary drawn by a rancher moves livestock onto a fresh paddock, allowing grazed pastures time to recover as livestock feed in a new location. 

“We can move the goats an unlimited number of times a day if we want to,” says Adam Ledvina, owner of Iowa Kiko Goats and Blue Collar Goatscaping. “In a better world, you move your animals every day. And the more often you can move them, the better you are.”

For conservationists, it may also help a declining habitat. The United States has lost more than 50 million acres of grasslands in the last 10 years, and groups such as The Nature Conservancy and their partners are trialing virtual fences as a tool for conservation and grazing operations. 

Grasslands need stimuli from grazing to encourage plant growth and recycle nutrients into the soil, but the ecosystem also needs time to recover to decrease soil erosion. Virtual fencing enables land managers to be precise and adaptive in their livestock grazing activities so native plants thrive in pastures. 

“That’s one of the definite benefits to the soil, having animals on the land,” says Scott Haase, a farmer from Minnesota. “The livestock impact is what most fields have been lacking for the last 75 years.”

Animal benefits 

Physical fences require ranchers to make frequent trips to their fields to check on their livestock and the stability of the fences. The mobile app connected to the virtual fence collars distributes real-time data on the rancher’s herd, providing information on animal health and location. The collar technology makes it so ranchers can see the current status of the animals anywhere and anytime—as long as there is an internet connection. 

“It could be the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night to make sure all the animals are doing their job and everyone is healthy,” says Ledvina. 

Virtual fencing also allows livestock to live more stress free with less human interaction. When animals are exposed to frequent stressors, it can cause an increased susceptibility to disease, decreased feed intake and reduced fertility.

In addition, the technology has even helped save animals’ lives by letting ranchers know when an animal stops moving or a signal is lost. 

“I have already saved animals from death because of the data being transmitted from the collars,” says Steele. “Farmers have a much better idea of the current well-being of their animals at any time of day than they’ve ever had before.” 

Steele recalls an incident that happened with another rancher participating in the Nofence pilot project with him. 

“He was just reviewing the data and found that one of his goats’ activity levels had declined,” says Steele. “He went and caught that goat, and sure enough, it had an injury. He only caught it in time to treat it because of the data.” 

Rancher benefits 

Virtual fencing has helped farmers monitor the status of their animals through a tap of an app, which current users of this technology says offers peace of mind. 

“If there’s a storm and a branch knocks down your fence, you wouldn’t know for a couple days, and this lets you know instantly,” says Ledvina. 

In the past, ranchers have struggled to keep livestock out of certain locations, such as bodies of water. Now, ranchers can create unique boundaries for their difficult terrain and even prevent animals from entering areas prone to flooding and wildfires. 

The fencing also eliminates hours of intensive labor. Building and maintaining physical fences requires a lot of work, including digging fence posts, replacing damaged fencing after storms and driving across pastureland to install more fencing. Ranchers report labor to be their largest expense, and virtual fencing can eliminate some of this labor. 

“I’ve got ponds and terrain to deal with, fallen trees in the wrong place, and all of those things add up,” says Daniel Faidley, operator of a cattle and goat farm in Iowa. “I don’t have piles of time.” 

Room for improvement

Despite the suggested benefits the technology has brought to ranchers trialing virtual fencing, there are still some challenges in making it accessible to mass audiences. 

Some landowners claim virtual fencing is cheaper than investing in physical fencing, but the cost is still higher than they’d like. The individual cow collars by Nofence cost $329 each and $229 for goats or sheep, but that isn’t the rancher’s only expense. They also have to pay a monthly subscription fee that will vary depending on the size of their herd and other factors. Despite the costs, Ledvina says he believes the reduction of labor costs makes it less expensive and, therefore, worth the investment. 

The battery life of the collars is another potential concern. After their initial charge using electricity, some of these collars are charged using solar power, which means that the amount of sun they receive can affect the battery life. In the summer, animals like to seek refuge in the shade. And in the winter, there are fewer daylight hours. Steele says that, although the collars hold their charge for a long time, it can be difficult to get sunlight on these collars at all times. 

Another reason some ranchers are hesitant to try virtual fencing is a reluctance to rely too much on technology. 

“Some people like to think you’re just getting more into your phone, and I get it, I want to disconnect, too,” says Ledvina. “But I wake up every morning and I’m able to check my animals. I do it to check my livelihood.”

A look into the future

Many ranchers consider virtual fencing to be the next frontier. It’s made it easier for farmers to do things they haven’t been able to do before and gives them time to prioritize what they’ve been missing out on.

With the trial’s success, Nofence is currently considering how many collars will be available to the public for 2024, with a priority going to sheep and goat collars. Its cattle collars are expected to launch in 2025. eShepherd, produced by Gallagher Animal Management, will also be available to the public some time this year. 

For those still debating trying out virtual fencing technology, Haase says it’s worth taking a chance. 

“I think once it really takes off, people are going to do creative and surprising things with it,” says Haase. 

Jenny Melo Velasco and Kelly Wilson contributed reporting to this story.

Want to get in line for access to virtual fencing technologies? Farmers and interested readers can register interest or sign up on a waitlist to be the first to receive these collars. Here are links to the major companies on the market: 

• Nofence
• Vence
• Gallagher eShepard
• Corral Technologies

To learn more about The Nature Conservancy and partners’ projects to research how virtual fencing can help managers improve soil carbon storage, biodiversity and economic outcomes, you can read more about it here. 

The post Ranchers Embrace Virtual Fencing for Greener Pastures  appeared first on Modern Farmer.

For Audrey Speyer, founder of PuriFungi, seeing fungi blooming on cigarette butts is proof that they’re at work, doing what they do best: decomposing matter. Her Belgian start-up cultivates mycelium—the thread-like root structure of fungus—using the plastic- and toxin-laden stubs as fodder.

As digestive enzymes break down the hazardous mix, the mycelium grows into a lightweight, styrofoam-like material that gets molded into ashtrays. Distributed at music festivals and public events and in municipalities throughout Belgium, France and Luxembourg, the upcycled product, which looks like a hollowed-out wheel of camembert, brings the process full circle by reining in the world’s most discarded waste item.

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have harnessed the remarkable power of fungi—an entire kingdom of multicellular organisms that includes mold, mushrooms and truffles—to digest complex organic matter into simpler structures. Yeast feeds on sugars, for example, to produce alcohol, while certain mold strains churn out penicillin and other antibiotics. And mushrooms of all kinds sprout as they feast on crop waste, coffee grounds and horse manure.

More recently, mycologists have been unleashing fungi on common industrial and consumer waste. With a voracious appetite for environmental pollutants such as petroleum, plastics and chemicals, these natural bioreactors safely digest and transform toxins into mycelium. Along with ashtrays, the lightweight, durable and fire-resistant substrate can be molded and fabricated into an array of applications such as insulation panels, a leather alternative and even a biodegradable casket.

“Fungi are nature’s recyclers,” says Speyer. Cost-effective and low-impact, she and other mycoenthusiasts see huge potential for mushrooms to power a full-circle economy, creating a renewable material source while extinguishing common sources of toxic waste.

No silver bullet

Mycoremediation—the practice of using fungi to clean up pollutants such as petroleum, chemicals and plastics—has long been studied as a promising solution to decontaminating oil spills, pesticide-laced soil and toxic wildfire ash. But, so far, efforts have been limited mostly to small-scale and trial applications.

“Contamination is not a straightforward problem,” says Kawina Robichaud, a mycologist at Biopterre, a Quebec-based research center specializing in bio-industrial innovation. Addressing site-specific variables—including the mix and concentration of contaminants, soil composition, climate and temperature—often requires a highly tailored approach to remediation, so “there’s no silver bullet,” she says.

One of Robichaud’s research projects explored the clean-up of a remote Yukon Territory site worthy of a Superfund designation: an abandoned waste oil dump built over an old copper mine. Besides foraging for fungi adapted to the subarctic environment, taming the stew of toxins required a larger bioremediation strategy, using local willows to concentrate inorganic contaminants such as heavy metals, as well as municipal compost, which added microbes and nutrients to help spur decomposition. (Inorganic compounds, by nature, don’t decompose but can be sequestered by organisms including mushrooms, plants and animals.)

The results were encouraging, says Robichaud, with test plots showing a 75-percent decrease in petroleum hydrocarbons. Yet, they also underscored the fact that, in nature, “fungi don’t work alone,” so site remediation tends to take “a community of organisms” to get the job done.

However, the ecosystem-based approach inherently comes with unknowns in consistency and timeline—factors that can make on-site applications a difficult business model, says Robichaud, especially in situations that call for quick and aggressive responses. “Nature takes time,” she adds. “That’s often not compatible with the world that we live in, where we want things fixed now.”

Still, the field holds clear advantages over conventional practices, which frequently involve chemical treatments and resource-intensive pumping, dredging and extraction. Using local resources to remediate waste, particularly in remote regions, also means “we’re not trucking raw materials hundreds of kilometers,” says Robichaud, “burning fuel to clean up fuel.”

For now, mycoremediation may be most effective when targeted on a singular waste source. Robichaud is currently studying the mycoremediation of retired railroad ties laced with creosote, a toxic compound used to make heavy lumber rot-resistant. The selective emphasis on one material allows for a controllable, predictable and scalable means of managing pollutants—an approach more amenable, she says, to garnering industry support.

Narrowing the scope

Because pollutant-laden waste is everywhere, narrow targets can still have huge impact, says PuriFungi’s Speyer. Take cigarette butts: With more than 4,000 contaminants, including 50 known carcinogens, “it’s a big cocktail of very bad things that spreads everywhere,” she says, noting that one stub can pollute 500 liters (132 gallons) of water. And the recent rise in smoking only heightens the need to find safe and effective ways to treat toxic waste that’s literally “under our feet.”

A designer by training, Speyer stumbled on fungi while searching for a sustainable and easy-to-cultivate material. In addition to being durable, fast-growing and adaptable to a range of applications, discovering that mycelium could render pollutants safe made it an attractive bio-based product, she says.

Speyer and her crew cultivate fungi in a humidity- and temperature-controlled environment much like an indoor mushroom farm, inoculating a mix of cigarette butts and hemp with oyster mushroom spores. After the initial incubation period, they break up the substrate by hand and set the clumps into molds. Over the next few weeks, the mycelium grows as it eats away at organic pollutants and fruit mushrooms that concentrate heavy metals. As it fills into its prescribed shape, the fruits are plucked away; the final product is then heat pasteurized to completion.

Speckled with straw-like remnants of disintegrated butts, PuriFungi’s bloomy rind-covered ashtrays have steadily caught the eyes of municipal officials and event organizers looking to promote awareness—and develop outlets—for proper cigarette disposal. And as consumers learn about their provenance, it helps spur responsible behavior towards curbing litter, says Speyer.

With more reliable outcomes, waste-specific approaches to mycoremediation may make it an easier sell to industry. Robichaud’s lab recently partnered with Atelier du Partage, a Goodwill-like organization based outside of Quebec, to find an alternative to disposing the 66 percent of donated clothing that the non-profit is unable to sell—a staggering amount that totals nearly 30 tons every year. Using fungi to decompose the heaps of fabric keeps plastic fibers, fire retardants and other pollutants out of landfills and incinerators, says Robichaud. And as a bonus, the mycelium-treated threads, which retain some of their original colors, mold into shabby chic Christmas tree ornaments, making for a surprise hit among Atelier shoppers last holiday season.

With clothing and textiles responsible for 20 percent of global refuse, it’s an end-of-life solution that, at scale, could chart a new course for the high-volume waste stream.

The fungi-powered circular economy is also taking root in the construction industry, which produces nearly a third of the nation’s waste, contributing vast amounts of material produced from petrochemicals. Tech giant Meta has partnered with a mycoproduct company to upcycle demolished drywall from its Tennessee data center into new insulation and acoustic panels, and Lendlease, a military housing developer, is embarking on a similar venture using old asphalt shingles.

Despite the mushrooming waste problem generated by industry, the current push towards sustainable waste solutions is largely driven by external forces. But really, it’s “the [product] producers who have a responsibility to make it happen,” says Speyer. She sees the broader extension of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies, which hold manufacturers responsible for collection, recycling and disposal of their products, as key to fueling regenerative waste management practices and supply chains.

Although EPR mandates have taken effect in an increasing range of countries and jurisdictions, including the European Union, Canadian provinces and a handful of US states, most focus on single-use plastics and packaging materials. Last year, the EU extended the obligation to tobacco manufacturers, although critics report that the regulations lack teeth.

Nevertheless, Speyer notes that a few cigarette companies have expressed interest in PuriFungi’s technology—although that’s posed a certain dilemma, she says, because “you don’t want to give them an excuse to keep producing more [of the same].” Ultimately, she’d like to see the development of a non-toxic, naturally biodegradable product.

While that might run counter to her current business model, “the [waste] problem is at such a massive scale,” says Speyer, that, at this point, there’s really no shortage of solutions.

The post Can Mushrooms Help Extinguish Toxic Waste? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

It turns out the miracle thread made from oil isn’t so recyclable. But it does break down, bit by bit: in the wash, on land, everywhere. Textiles are a major source of microplastics in the ocean, where they weave their way into the food chain, causing untold harms to marine life. Entire ecosystems are being altered by our clothes. 

Studies tell us we eat and drink its flecks, too, with unknown health impacts, and that the volume of plastic particles in the ocean is doubling about every six years. 

Our daily clothing choices are part of it all, but with polyester, rayon and acrylic so ubiquitous plastic even rains from the sky, choices are limited. Polyester, made from the same plastic as most water bottles, is woven into about half of the world’s clothing. Cheap and easy to make, it’s still the fastest-growing group of fibers used to manufacture garments. 

What’s the solution? Some see the answer to more sustainable fabrics in new materials that can readily decompose or be recycled; others say natural fibers and local supply chains are the way to go. But each approach depends on infrastructure that has yet to be fully realized. If the end game is simply more mass production and consumption, with the thought that all of this material will quickly degrade or find its way to recycling, our oceans and landfills of trash will only grow.

The high cost of fast fashion 

Fast fashion uses both synthetic and natural fibers, and the environmental trade-offs between the two are endless, from land and water use to chemical inputs. But when it comes to planet-heating emissions, fossil fuel-based synthetics—the main materials in use—are clear losers. Fashion contributes around 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, second only to big oil. And most of the carbon footprint of a garment is around producing its fibers. 

Another big factor is end of life. There is nowhere near enough fiber recycling infrastructure in the US, where 85 percent of used clothes and other textiles get sent to the landfill. In California, most clothing is disposed of through curbside solid waste collection—a straight route to the dump. At every level are gaps that prevent “textile circularity” especially when it comes to sorting out salvageable garments and sourcing recycling. And while natural fibers can biodegrade, it’s rarely that simple. Companies often blend natural with plastic fibers, adding dyes and finishes, and blends are particularly hard to recycle because the components require different processes.

For companies, it isn’t profitable to develop large-scale reuse, repair and recycling with the high costs of transportation, labor and processing, along with decreasing quality of new products.

According to standards body Textile Exchange, only about 14 percent of polyester is made from recycled fibers. Companies are working on technology to make it easier—yet thousands of dangerous chemicals are used to make plastic goods and researchers are sounding the alarm about recycling them. 

In addition, most natural fibers are grown conventionally, which often means heavy use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and genetically modified or treated seeds. Cotton, the most used natural fiber, occupies 2.4 percent of the world’s farmland but uses 4.7 percent of the world’s pesticides and 10 percent of its insecticides. 

Enter next-gen synthetics. A slew of startups is out to replace both polyester and natural fibers with alternatives they say are better for the planet.

Emerging protein designers 

One emerging method used to create new fibers is with gene editing. It happens in a wink compared to the millions of years it took nature and selective breeding by humans to perfect, say, sheeps’ wool.

After modifying genes that give a desired quality to a natural fiber, scientists insert this DNA into yeast or bacteria cells. Next, fermentation turns the microbes into factories, churning out proteins that will be spun into fibers and given names such as Microsilk and Werewool.

As the companies see it, the process is more efficient than growing fibers naturally; traditional silk, for example, is biodegradable and long-lasting, but cultivation can use large amounts of water and pesticides. One of the most promising polyester and silk replacements is Tandem Repeat’s squid protein-based Squitex, which draws on AI to design a fiber with stretch, strength and thermal responsiveness, and it works with most current manufacturing equipment. The Philadelphia company, which plans to sell both fibers and garments, will release a limited collection this year.

Another is Spiber’s Brewed Protein, which can replace oil-based, silk and other animal fibers. The polymer can yield various end products depending on the twisting of yarns. By changing the protein content and yarn diameter, the company can tweak texture, weight and handfeel.

That’s the easy part, experts say. The difficulty, and the stage most of these startups are now, is in scaling manufacturing. The manufacture of next-gen fibers requires giant fermentation vats and skilled workers. When it comes to spinning, according to Bloom Labs, costs can be two to three times higher than with oil-based yarns because the melt-spun machines used by the apparel industry don’t work with these fledgling fibers. 

But as the planet burns and plastic fibers boom, it’s getting harder for brands to ignore the need for sustainable fabrics. 

Nicole Rawling, CEO and co-founder of the think tank Material Innovation Initiative (MII), says they define “next-gen” as more than the gene-edited proteins. Those fibers can be plant-derived, mycelium, cultivated animal cells, microbe-derived, recycled materials and blends. “Next-gen materials must be animal-free, high-performance and have a smaller environmental footprint than their traditional counterparts,” she says. MII focuses on the goals of production, not the technologies used.

“We recommend focusing on the real problem: petrochemicals, not plastics,” says Rawling, noting that some plastics are bio-based and have less of an environmental impact. The claim is controversial, however, in terms of biodegradability and because plant-based plastics require crops such as corn and farmland that could have been used to grow food.

Proteins aside, Circ, a recycling innovator, has developed a hydrothermal process that can separate polyester-cotton blends—the largest blend category globally—and recover both portions to make into like-new fibers for textiles. 

“Not long ago, it was nearly impossible to separate and re-use fibers from cotton/poly blends, thus millions of tons of discarded clothing and textiles were destined for landfill or incineration,” says Rawling.

One challenge is designing biodegradability into goods that won’t easily fall apart in use. A recent study from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography tracked the ability of natural, synthetic and blended fabrics to decompose in the ocean. It found that natural and wood-based cellulose fabrics (Lyocell, Modal and Viscose) degraded within a month, while fabrics made of what was thought to be a biodegradable plastic (PLA) and the oil-based fibers in textile blends showed no decay after more than a year in the ocean.

Kintra Fibers has developed a bio-based polyester (56 percent corn-derived) it says greatly reduces greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional polyester and can be produced with the same equipment. According to its website, the material decays in controlled composting conditions. 

Fiber growers

Last October, Sally Fox was thousands of miles from home, where the greens and golds of her cotton fields shimmered in the Central Valley sun. She was at a cotton-spinning mill in Japan to sell her fibers, because there are no such mills left in California, she said in an email. “I have one customer in the world.”

Fox has been selectively breeding cotton to produce her exquisitely colored yarns for 38 years, and she says the industry was once profitable enough that she could afford to lease her own gins, the machines that quickly separate cotton fibers from seeds.

That’s no longer the case. “The textile industry collapsed when the big brands went offshore and dumped the spinners and weavers in the US, Europe and Japan. And I lost all the mills I was selling to except this one,” she said.

Fiber farmers, already up against cheap polyester and the economy of fast fashion, now face another threat: the rise of mass-produced alternative synthetics in development.

Rebecca Burgess, founder of Fibershed, a nonprofit that supports regenerative farming, points out that there is already a bounty of natural fiber available for textiles.

Two-thirds of the wool in California doesn’t even have a home and 900,000 pounds per year is textile grade, says Burgess. “We’re not even getting all the natural fibers that are part of food rotations.” 

The US is the third-largest global cotton producer. In 2018, more than 14 million of the 18 million bales it produced were exported. More than 200,000 acres of cotton is grown in the San Joaquin Valley—”enough to create at least seven pairs of jeans each year for every person in the state,” says Burgess.

If a strong local fiber economy existed, growers could find markets for all their fiber, she says. Instead, they face “huge deficits” in aggregation, distribution and manufacturing. If you start a spinning mill, for example, you also need a good wool scour line for a washing station and places to send wastewater.

Absent is large-scale felting, wool scouring, color-grown cotton gins, large-scale fine gauge spinning, industrial felt natural dye pigment production and more. 

Burgess sees the main problem with cheap fashion—one she thinks next-gen won’t solve—as massive overconsumption. At one end are people unboxing their huge hauls, “stoking people on TikTok to purchase just like them.” At the other is the Atacama Desert in Chile or Accra in Ghana, “where they receive something like 40 million garments per month,” most of which end up in open-air dumps.

Soil-to-soil fiber economies

Fibershed advocates for bringing home the once-thriving textile supply chain, which now exists as a geographically long series of links among growers and processors of fibers, weavers, knitters, dyers and finishers, product manufacturers and distributors. It envisions local systems where natural fibers are sustainably grown, processed, sewn into garments and ultimately composted. 

In Fibershed’s 168-producer network are regenerative farms and textile projects such as Chico Flax in the Sacramento Valley, which is working on bringing back the region’s flax textile industry. There are growers of dye plants, hemp, cotton and wool.

Wool production is often criticized for wreaking havoc on land, from overgrazing to scouring chemicals. The Center for Biological Diversity has called on brands to phase out or cut wool use in half by 2025. But Fibershed sees wool as a carbon sink. More than 55 wool producers have joined its Climate Beneficial Verification label program that supports farmers who are building healthy soil.

It’s not about small versus large-scale farming, says Burgess; small growers don’t always have enough land to use the rotational grazing that fosters plant biodiversity. “Some of the most regenerative, or grassland regenerating, grazing I’ve seen is on larger operations.”

To create vegetation shifts and poly cultures, ranchers try to mimic a wildland biome through multi-species grazing, “moving animals quickly through these systems, then having them return after land has had time to regenerate.”

Even cotton can be grown and processed within a scalable, restorative system, proponents say. Central Valley growers and researchers are incorporating carbon farming to help soil store carbon and water; abilities lost to decades of conventional practices. Less than one percent of cotton grown in the US is organic.

Cleaning up cotton is something Sally Fox knows all about. “I was among those who started the whole organic cotton industry.” She grows her colorful “foxfibre” cotton using biodynamic practices, but for certification, she sticks with organic—it’s less challenging, but organic is the original regenerative certification, she says.

“It is absolutely the gold standard for sequestering carbon into soils—the goal of all regenerative farming practices.”

Unbox ‘like new’

Fox views sustainability in clothing as revolving around its longevity. Cotton spun correctly should last 20 to 60 years (except jeans). Linen spun correctly should last 100 to 1,000 years. Wool spun properly should last 80 to 300 years. “I am not kidding,” she emphasizes.

Her next criteria is ethical production, “with the work force between the raw material and final product not being enslaved or coerced or any of the rest of the shenanigans used to beat down the cost brands pay for products.” She prefers garments made in the US, Japan or the EU, because they have workplace standards. Elsewhere, she seeks GOTS and Oeko-Tex certifications. “GOTS actually inspects every facility.”

Last but not least, she mends holes, fixes seams. She even darns socks. It’s not exactly fast fashion, but just landing on a definition of sustainable “can make one’s head spin,” she says. And the first response is to give up, and basically give in to polyester—the wonder fabric that, today, isn’t so wrinkle-free after all.

With legislation that requires end-of-life solutions for products, consumers rethinking their choices and investment in both next-gen synthetics and local natural fiber economies, both visions can be part of a better clothing future. Here’s how you can help:

Buy less, and love what you do buy. Instead of buying loads of cheap clothing, instead think about investing in a few high-quality items that you love and know will last you a long time. Whether made of synthetic fibers or natural fibers such as wool, silk and linen, keep in mind the lifecycle of your clothing: what will happen to it when you’re finished with it?

Buy and sell used clothing. Gently worn or returned purchases are increasingly being offered on sites such as ThredUp, Poshmark, Relay Goods and Patagonia’s Worn Wear. (For example, Relay, which calls itself a zero waste marketplace, sells shoes and sports gear, buying their surplus inventory and returns from retailers and offering the most sought-after shoes at attractive markdowns). 

Learn to mend and repair. Sewing, darning and other forms of mending used to be common, and for good reason: they help you get the most out of your clothing, and they can be fun and creative, too. Inspiration is everywhere, if you know where to look—social media can be a good place to start, and books such as Visible Mending by Arounna Khounnoraj provide step-by-step instructions for how newbies can get started.

Support legislation designed to cut down on textile waste. Legislation introduced in California and New York would eventually require textile producers to provide end-of-life solutions for products. If you want to support those bills or ask for a similar one to be introduced in your state, contact your local legislators and let your voice be heard.

The post Are Next-Gen Synthetic Fibers the Future of Sustainable Textiles? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Plastic may have made farm life easier, but it’s also caused the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to raise alarm bells about its impact on the environment. Globally, 12.5 million tons of agricultural plastic is used annually. Everything from silage wraps, tote drums, containers, plastic mulch, greenhouse sheeting and row covers have a use in modern-day agriculture, although much of it is single-use and not recyclable. 

The Rodale Institute, proponents of regenerative organic farming, estimate that, for every acre of land farmed using plastic mulch, between 100 and 120 pounds of plastic ends up in the landfill or breaks down into a farmer’s field. As the plastic decomposes, a process that takes up to 1,000 years to complete, it releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or breaks down into tiny microplastics that attach themselves to root vegetables and enter the food system. 

In 2021, the FAO called for a more sustainable use of agricultural plastics and promoted a net zero plastic waste for agriculture. That’s where companies such as Cleanfarms, where Friesen is the executive director, come in. 

Cleanfarms is a Canadian stewardship organization that recycles agricultural plastic. It works with manufacturers and producers of agricultural plastic to recycle products on its behalf. Partnering with local collection services and municipalities, Cleanfarms is the only stewardship organization in Canada working to clean up agricultural plastic.

In 2022, Cleanfarms reported collecting and recycling 5,000 tons of crop input and agricultural film plastic, 5.2 million empty pesticide and fertilizer containers and nearly 300,000 empty seed and pesticide bags. But despite these figures, Friesen admits that Cleanfarms is only collecting 10 percent of the agricultural plastic used on Canadian farms.

The story is not much different in the United States, where 816 million pounds of agricultural plastic is used annually. The Agricultural Container Research Council operates in 46 states collecting and recycling agricultural crop protection, animal health, fertilizer and pest control containers such as jugs and drums. Since its conception in 1992, more than 240 million tons of agricultural plastic container waste has been recycled. There are other recycling programs throughout the US, but what they collect varies from state to state. 

David McDaniel is co-founder of Maine’s Greenhouse Plastic Recycling Program. He used to encourage farmers to recycle their plastic greenhouse sheeting. However, McDaniel is no longer a recycling enthusiast. “Agriculture plastic is not a cradle-to-grave product and is not easily recyclable, but instead is a mostly disposable throw-away cradle-to-landfill enabler,” he says.

[RELATED: Plastic Mulch is Problematic—and Everywhere. Can We Do Better?]

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), each time plastic is recycled, the quality of the material degrades. Because of this, most plastics are recycled only once or twice before ultimately being disposed of in landfills or incinerators. 

McDaniel also questions why the onus to recycle is on the grower and not the company that manufactures the product. 

“Companies are creating all sorts of new plastic products, but they have no responsibility for where that plastic goes at the end of its useful life,” he says. Cleanfarms wondered if Canadian farmers were asking similar questions, and if those concerns impeded their recycling efforts. In 2020 and early 2021, Cleanfarms conducted grower surveys in Saskatchewan, Ontario, British Columbia and the Maritimes. Farmers were asked to participate in pilot projects and recycle items such as containers, twine, grain bags and baler wrap. In British Columbia, 98 per cent of those surveyed supported a recycling program for plastic twine and 100 per cent expressed support for establishing recycling programs for silage plastics.

The survey also showed that, across all regions, farmers, almost unanimously, were opposed to covering the costs of recycling themselves. 

The answer: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Shifting the responsibility for managing materials at the end of life away from consumers and onto producers, EPRs are government regulations imposed on products that are intended to make it easier for the consumer to recycle. It’s not uncommon for manufacturers of computers or tires to ask consumers to pay an extra fee at the time of purchase for the cost of collecting and recycling the product. It’s now becoming normal for agricultural plastic. 

Having encountered resistance in the past from waste management and recycling companies that perceived EPRs as giving the packaging industry control over recyclables, EPRs are now seen as business opportunities to improve and expand recycling services and facilities. 

In Canada, many provinces have legislated EPRs on agricultural plastic, making it illegal not to recycle plastic at the end of its useful life. Saskatchewan was the first province to establish an EPR on grain bags. From 2016 to 2020, recycling of the bags doubled from 1,257 tons a year to 2,536 tons. 

In Maine, McDaniel’s solution to recycling has been to stop using plastic, as much as he is able, on his own Earth Dharma Farm. Instead of using black plastic mulch, he plants his crops closer together.

“After about four to six weeks, the canopy completely closes and little sunlight reaches the soil. Weeds can’t compete and soil moisture is conserved due to the cool understory microclimate.”

Instead of seed trays, he uses soil blocks that compress soil into uniform bricks that hold their shape without the need for plastic cell moulds. He refuses to use spun polypropylene row cover until manufacturers create a product that can be recycled. 

Bioplastics may be McDaniel’s wish come true. Made from renewable organic material rather than petroleum or natural gas, they are supposed to be less harmful to the environment. Many are made to naturally biodegrade without harm to soil or crops. In 2023, global bioplastics production reached 1.79 million tons, but more research is needed. In 2021, the Canadian government earmarked $4.5 million to improve not just plastic waste management and on-farm sustainability but to advance bioplastic research.

Part of the impetus for Cleanfarms’ conception in 2010 was a recognition that farmers, consumers and governments would no longer accept plastic’s environmental impacts and demand alternatives.

“Before Cleanfarms programs,” says Friesen, “farmers had limited options to manage the types of packaging and products they used on [the] farm. To ensure farmers can operate sustainably, one solution is to continue to provide opportunities to include these materials, through recycling in a circular economy.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that 816 million tons of agricultural plastic are used annually in the US. That number is reflected in pounds, not tons. 

The post A Plastic Tsunami is Taking Over Farms. What Will Stop Plasticulture?  appeared first on Modern Farmer.