They’re not all farm wives anymore. Women are driving combines, ordering feed and seed and owning and managing farms and ranches. Linda Bannwarth, of rural Mitchell, has seen the evolving role of women in agriculture.
“I just think there’s more respect for women now. I have nieces who have ag degrees,” Bannwarth said.
“The glass ceiling for women is getting broken,” she said. “Women can do as much as men now. Today’s woman is more knowledgeable, more confident.”
(Reuters) – A 75-year-old Indiana grain farmer will take on global seed giant Monsanto Co at the U.S. Supreme Court next week in a patent battle that could have ramifications for the biotechnology industry and possibly the future of food production.
The highest court in the United States will hear arguments on Tuesday in the dispute, which started when soybean farmer Vernon Bowman bought and planted a mix of unmarked grain typically used for animal feed. The plants that grew turned out to contain the popular herbicide-resistant genetic trait known as Roundup Ready that Monsanto Continue reading Industrial Ag wary as Monsanto heads to Supreme Court→
HOLYOKE, Mass. — It was the build-it-and-they-will-come principle that inspired two self-described plant geeks to buy a soulless duplex on a barren lot in this industrial city 10 years ago and turn it into their own version of the Garden of Eden. Their Eves, they figured, would show up sooner or later.
“Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One-Tenth of an Acre, and the Making of an Edible Garden Oasis in the City,” by Eric Toensmeier, with contributions from Jonathan Bates, tells the story of how it happened. Published by Chelsea Green this month, it’s just in time for armchair gardening — and Valentine’s Day.
It’s a love story intertwined with the tale of how a small, barren backyard shaded by Norway maples, with an asphalt driveway in front, became a place that could sustain about 160 kinds of edible plants, including pawpaws, persimmons, Asian pears, gooseberries, strawberries, blueberries and rarities like goumi (tiny berries with a sour Continue reading NY Times takes a trip to a garden paradise in Holyoke, MA→
Young and aspiring farmers face a variety of challenges—from lack of land to not being able to access markets. But there are exciting new initiatives across the world offering valuable information and guidance to new farmers.
Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture: The Stone Barns farm in Pocantico Hills, NY is a learning hub for farmers young and old. With a goal of educating farmers in “resilient, restorative farming techniques” Stone Barns offers everything from Farm Camp for kids to Virtual Grange, an online community for young farmers to gain knowledge and mentoring.
Farmer to Farmer: This organization began as a cooperative between Wisconsin and Nicaraguan farmers to learn from one another. Now, its efforts are focused on educating coffee farmers in Guatemala.
Cultivating Success: This program offers courses to beginning and existing farmers helping them find planning and decision-making tools, production skills, and support to successfully cultivate sustainable small-acreage farms in Wisconsin and Idaho.
Angelic Organics Learning Center Farmer Training Initiative: A recent recipient of a grant from the USDA, this mentoring program is headed by experienced farmers from the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training and offers new sustainable farmers business planning, on-farm training and mentoring.
Dakota Rural Action Farm Beginnings: A farmer-led program that links established and beginning farmers to learn about low-cost, sustainable methods of farming.
London (CNN) — A frozen food producer caught up in a scandal over horsemeat found in beef products in the United Kingdom, Sweden and France said Saturday it will sue the Romanian producer it blames for the problem.
The French arm of Swedish frozen food firm Findus said it would file a legal complaint Monday against the unnamed Romanian business. Findus said it had been told that its products were being made with French beef, not Romanian horsemeat.
“We were deceived,” said a Findus France statement. “There are two victims in this affair: Findus and the consumer.”
NORTHAMPTON – With Wall Street at a low point in public opinion, a group of local worker cooperatives is building a fund to help its members as well as new cooperatives trying to get off the ground.
Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives has nine members throughout the Pioneer Valley, from Holyoke to Greenfield. Each of the business is owned and operated by the people who work there, giving them powers and responsibilities not found at other places of work.
Adam and Stever from Collective Copies
“You’re able to use your values and determine where your money is going,” said Adam Trott of Collective Copies, one of the founding members of the group, which has been in existence since 2005.
The latest member is Simple, a Holyoke-based cooperative that offers compostable diapers and chemical-free linen laundering. With Simple about to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony, Trott said it’s a good time for other cooperative ventures.
“People are more ready for something new when there are difficult economic times,” he said.
To this end, the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives is establishing a fund that can loan money to new and existing cooperatives. As Trott explained it, each member contributes 5 percent of its annual profits toward the fund. The Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives has also recently partnered with the Cooperative Fund of New England, availing itself of the fund’s expertise and staff.
The Cooperative Fund of New England, Trott said, has cooperative members throughout New England and eastern New York, and more than $1 million in assets. The local group of cooperatives will look to it for help in vetting and procession loan applications.
“They’re great,” Trott said. “It’s a totally solid organization.”
With so many new terrific eateries opening in recent years, Amherst has become a destination for foodies. But while customers savor superb meals in Amherst, one can get the mistaken impression from recent comments that the University of Massachusetts has somehow started an unsavory food fight with our local restaurants and caterers.
As someone who delights in Amherst restaurants and represents UMass in the community, I find the situation, unfortunately, clouded by misperceptions and falsehoods.
First, a word about the university’s financial challenges. State support for UMass Amherst has been cut nearly $23 million during the past five years.
The traditional college-age population is declining across the Northeast. We must compete every day to attract the best students and engage supporters. So when we invite a range of guests to campus — parents, prospective students, alumni and potential donors — it is to advance the university’s critical interests. That’s the raison d’etre for the events, and we find that sharing a meal on campus is one of the many ways of creating appreciation and support for UMass. Such hospitality is vital to our success, and we are pleased that many of our visitors also spend time and dollars in the Pioneer Valley.
A misconception also exists about state dollars. The state appropriation to UMass Amherst accounts for only 20 percent of the total campus budget, with nearly all state funds devoted to payroll. The money we receive from taxpayers across Massachusetts — as well as students and families and donors — is entrusted to UMass so we can fulfill our mission, which is to create a vibrant learning and living community. There is no “responsibility” or designation to devote a certain amount of dollars for catering or dining. We do so, as we should, when it advances the university. That’s our true responsibility to the taxpayers.
Much of the recent discussion revolves around our catering policy and assertions that UMass spending in town has declined. This involves a third set of misconceptions.
UMass Dining Services, of which catering is a part, receives no state funds and is entirely self-sufficient, deriving most of its revenue from feeding 16,000 students daily. When families visit, they don’t receive free food. Rather, the standard dining plan includes charges for guest meals, a common practice at other colleges and in effect at UMass for a decade. Our catering policy, giving the campus the right of first refusal for catered events and limiting outside vendors to delivery, is common practice at public universities across the country, including our neighbors at the University of Connecticut and the University of New Hampshire.
Not mentioned in recent discussions, however, are the other ways that university dollars are spent with local businesses, such as recruiting faculty and staff by dining at local restaurants or having food delivered to campus. In 2012, $706,000 was spent with 26 local restaurants and caterers and $249,000 with three grocery stores. University spending at restaurants and caterers increased 34 percent during the last three years. For example, university dollars spent at the Black Sheep Deli has increased over the past three years from $65,000 to $92,000, at Moti from $600 to $4,000 and at Antonio’s from $4,800 to $8,000.
The amount UMass invests in hospitality is but a small portion of its financial contribution to the region. The campus provides $1.4 billion in economic activity to the Massachusetts economy, including $432 million in payroll and $30 million spent on goods and services with local businesses and communities.
What makes all this possible is successful partnerships, and among the most vital is the relationship with our host communities. Our active participation in the Amherst Business Improvement District (BID), our engagement with the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, and our efforts with Promoting Downtown Amherst (PDA) to bring students downtown all demonstrate our commitment to Amherst and the business community. In addition, we are working to expand these efforts. The plans include:
• Implementation of a OneCard system allowing students to purchase goods and services from participating off-campus businesses using a university debit-style card. Anticipated implementation is next fall.
• Working with the Chamber and BID to promote local businesses to conference hosts and attendees as well as to visitors on campus for special university events such as commencement and homecoming.
• Exploring the possibility of a yearly mass distribution of a marketing piece to targeted UMass faculty and staff in cooperation with the Chamber.
So, let’s move beyond this misperceived food fight and continue to engage in building partnerships from which we all benefit.
Nancy Buffone is executive director of external relations and university events at UMass Amherst and is a longtime Amherst resident.
Its been over 2 years since Wal-Mart made a big announcement about how they were going to support small, local farming operations in the U.S. Personally, I was suspicious and wrote about it in my blog post….
Wal-Mart claims that 11 percent of the produce in its stores now comes from local farms.
Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
When Wal-Mart calls, Herman Farris always finds whatever the retailer wants, even if it’s yucca root in the dead of winter. Farris is a produce broker in Columbia, Mo., who has been buying for Wal-Mart from auctions and farms since the company began carrying fruits and vegetables in the early 1990s.
During the summer and fall, nearly everything Farris delivers is grown in Missouri. That’s Wal-Mart’s definition of “local” — produce grown and sold in the same state. In winter, it’s a bit tougher to source locally.
In 2010, Wal-Mart pledged to double its local produce sales from 4 to 9 percent by 2015, as part of a new sustainability program and a commitment to support small businesses. While the chain has exceeded that goal – it says 11 percent of its produce sold nationwide comes from local farms — there’s little evidence of small farmers benefiting, at least in the Midwest.
Organic vegetable grower Jim Thomas, who grows organic vegetables and sells them at the Columbia farmers market, doesn’t know anyone who has sold successfully to Wal-Mart.
“They tend to try to force people into lower prices than feasible,” he says. “My only concern is that they’re willing to pay the price to get the quality that they get from local produce.”
Wal-Mart says they try to be as price competitive as possible, and that their local buyers draw up contracts with farmers a year out, laying out fixed prices for set amounts of crops. Ron McCormick, senior director of sustainable agriculture for Wal-Mart’s U.S. division, says that the number of small farms supplying the company has grown since 2010. But there are challenges – like keeping track of growers, uncertainty about small farms delivering during bad-weather years, and the high costs of strict food safety audits, which are required to supply Wal-Mart.
“There are ways to help the farmer with those costs but it’s a matter of doing that 100 times over if you’re working with small farmers,” McCormick said.
Produce broker Herman Farris, outside a Wal-Mart in Columbia, Mo., was heading to St. Louis to pick up a shipment of bananas for Wal-Mart.
Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
Wal-Mart claims its emphasis on local has saved customers over $1 billion while helping farmers. But Wyatt Fraas, of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyon, Neb., would like to see those benefits and cost savings broken down.
“Unfortunately, there’s so little definition and transparency about how that happens that we don’t really know if that happens or how that happens,” he said.
Of the eight farms highlighted on Wal-Mart’s locally grown web site, five are very large farms by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s definition, with annual sales in the millions of dollars.
And then there’s the question of volume. The University of Missouri Extension’s Jennifer Schutter, who helps farmers sell produce to retailers, says many small farmers in Missouri simply can’t grow enough.
“They only have produce for four months out of the year,” she says. “Wal-Mart wants produce consistently from the same distributor pretty much all year long.”
A few small operations in the Midwest have had success working with Wal-Mart, including Divine Gardens, a tomato grower in western Kansas, and Missouri Vegetable Farm, a 200-acre farm 70 miles south of St. Louis.
Missouri Vegetable Farm was created in 2010 specifically to supply Wal-Mart by the Proffer family, which also owns Proffer Wholesale Produce. Proffer Produce has been a middleman for Wal-Mart since the 1990s, and delivers produce to distribution centers in 13 states. Overall, the company has sales of nearly $60 million a year.
In its shipping facility, as workers in hairnets separated green peppers by quality, size and weight, food safety director Jason Landers said farms, regardless of their size, must adapt their business models to compete in the growing local foods market.
“If they want to continue to succeed, they have to modify their operations,” he said.
But LaDonna Redmond, a senior policy associate with the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, says it’s a slippery slope.
“That’s the question: Will it actually benefit [farmers], or will the situation turn out to be one where the benefit really is transferred to Wal-Mart?” Redmond says.
She adds that until Wal-Mart builds the cost of producing local food into its prices, few small farms will truly benefit from the retailer’s push to source more local food.
Abbie Fentress Swanson reports from Missouri for Harvest Public Media, an agriculture-reporting project involving nine NPR member stations in the Midwest. For more stories about farm and food, check outHarvest Public Media.
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2 – Walmart’s big push into groceries is not good for small farmers
When you think of Walmart, you probably think of cheap Chinese products and labor. But about two-thirds of the money Walmart spends to stock up its U.S. stores now goes for domestic products. That’s because, over the last decade, Walmart has moved aggressively into the grocery sector, and most of our food items are grown and produced here in the U.S. Ten years ago, groceries made up less than 25 percent of the retail giant’s sales; they now make up 55 percent. From CNN:
Experts say that this shift was no accident. The nation’s largest retailer adapted to fit the needs of its cash-strapped customers in the midst of a slow economic recovery. Shoppers today are more concerned with buying basics like milk and bread than electronics and apparel, many of which are foreign-made, and the retailer is shifting focus to keep up.
“Consumers have been shopping more for ‘needs’ than for ‘wants,’ and that’s why groceries are still the number one thing in their budgets,” said Craig Johnson, president of independent consulting firm Customer Growth Partners. “In return, Wal-Mart has become a needs-oriented store.”
Walmart’s crushing the competition, with higher sales than Kroger, Safeway, and SuperValu grocery chains combined. Its house “Great Value” brand boasts the biggest sales of any food brand in the U.S. To assert its dominance in the grocery sector, Walmart “leverages its scale” so its suppliers can pay lower prices to farmers, as investing site Trefis reports — which is bad news for small farmers across the country. Sure, god made a farmer, but god also made an American profit motive. From NPR’s The Salt blog:
Wal-Mart claims its emphasis on local has saved customers over $1 billion while helping farmers. But Wyatt Fraas, of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyon, Neb., would like to see those benefits and cost savings broken down.
“Unfortunately, there’s so little definition and transparency about how that happens that we don’t really know if that happens or how that happens,” he said.
Of the eight farms highlighted on Wal-Mart’s locally grown web site, five are very large farms by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s definition, with annual sales in the millions of dollars.
Walmart’s claim that it supports small-scale farmers just doesn’t add up. One of the retail behemoth’s suppliers says that all farms, big or small, “have to modify their operations” if they want to succeed in this new age of Walmart groceries.
But LaDonna Redmond, a senior policy associate with the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, says it’s a slippery slope.
“That’s the question: Will it actually benefit [farmers], or will the situation turn out to be one where the benefit really is transferred to Wal-Mart?” Redmond says.
Oh come on, NPR, you don’t need to he-said she-said on this one. We know who benefits: Walmart sold $244 billion of groceries last year.
We’ve got to break out of the old ways of thinking about the economy.
Most activists tend to approach progressive change from one of two perspectives: First, there’s the “reform” tradition that assumes corporate control is a constant and that “politics” acts to modify practices within that constraint. Liberalism in the United States is representative of this tradition. Then there’s the “revolutionary” tradition, which assumes change can come about only if the major institutions are largely eliminated or transcended, often by violence.
But what if neither revolution nor reform is viable?
Paradoxically, we believe the current stalemating of progressive reform may open up some unique strategic possibilities to transform institutions of the political economy over time. We call this third option evolutionary reconstruction. Like reform, evolutionary reconstruction involves step-by-step nonviolent change. But like revolution, evolutionary reconstruction changes the basic institutions of ownership of the economy, so that the broad public, rather than a narrow band of individuals (i.e., the “one percent”) owns more and more of the nation’s productive assets.
1. A People’s Bank
One area where this logic can be seen at work is in the financial industry. At the height of the financial crisis in early 2009, some kind of nationalization of the banks seemed possible. It was a moment, President Obama told banking CEOs, when his administration was “the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” The president opted for a soft bailout, Continue reading Six Economic Steps to a Better Life and Real Prosperity for All→
Sprinklers water crops in Bakersfield, California, during a heatwave.
The world’s food crisis, where 1 billion people are already going hungry and a further 2 billion people will be affected by 2050, is set to worsen as increasing heatwaves reverse the rising crop yields seen over the last 50 years, according to new research.
Severe heatwaves, such as those currently seen in Australia, are expected to become many times more likely in coming decades due to climate change. Extreme heat led to 2012 becoming the hottest year in the US on record and the worst corn crop in two decades.
New research, which used corn growing in France as an example, predicts losses of up to 12% for maize yields in the next 20 years. A second, longer-term study published on Sunday indicates that, without action against climate change, wheat and soybean harvests will fall by up to 30% by 2050 as the world warms.
“Our research rings alarm bells for future food security,” said Ed Hawkins, at the University of Reading, who worked on the corn study. “Over the last 50 years, developments in agriculture, such as fertilisers and irrigation, have increased yields of the world’s staple foods, but we’re starting to see a slowdown in yield increases.”
He said increasing frequency of hot days across the world could explain some of this slowdown. “Current advances in agriculture are too slow to offset the expected damage to crops from heat stress in the future,” said Prof Andy Challinor, at the University of Leeds. “Feeding a growing population as climate changes is a major challenge, especially since the land available for agricultural expansion is limited. Supplies of the major food crops could be at risk unless we plan for future climates.”
Hawkins, Challinor and colleagues examined how the number of days when the temperature rose above 32C affected the maize crop in France, which is the UK’s biggest source of imported corn. Yields had quadrupled between 1960 and 2000 but barely improved in the last decade, while the number of hot days more than doubled.
By the 2020s, hot days are expected to occur over large areas of France where previously they were uncommon and, unless farmers find ways to combat the heat stress that damages seed formation, yields of French maize could fall by 12% compared to today. Hawkins said there will be some differences with other crops in different locations, but added: “Extreme heat is not good for crops.”
The second study is the first global assessment of a range of climate change impacts, from increased flooding to rising demand for air conditioning, of how cutting carbon emissions could reduce these impacts, published in Nature Climate Change. “Our research clearly identifies the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions – less severe impacts on crops and flooding are two areas of particular benefit,” said Prof Nigel Arnell of the University of Reading, who led the study, published in Nature Climate Change.
One example showed global productivity of spring wheat could drop by 20% by the 2050s, but such a drop in yields is delayed until 2100 if firm action is taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
River flooding was the impact which was most reduced if climate action is taken, the study found. Without action, even optimistic forecasts suggest the world will warm by 4C, which would expose about 330m people globally to greater flooding. But that number could be cut in half if emissions start to fall in the next few years. Flooding is the biggest climate threat to the UK, with over 8,000 homes submerged in 2012.
Another dramatic impact was on the need for air conditioning as temperatures rise. The energy needed for cooling is set to soar but could be cut by 30% if the world acts to curb emissions, with the benefit being particularly high in Europe. However, climate action has relatively little effect on water shortages, set to hit a billion people. Just 5% of those would avoid water problems if emissions fall.
“But cutting emissions buys you time for adaptation [to climate change’s impacts],” said Arnell. “You can buyfive to 10 years [delay in impacts] in the 2030s, and several decade from 2050s. It is quite an optimistic study as it shows that climate policies can have a big effect in reducing the impacts on people.”
Ed Davey, the UK’s secretary of state for energy and climate change, said: “We can avoid many of the worst impacts of climate change if we work hard together to keep global emissions down. This research helps us quantify the benefits of limiting temperature rise to 2C and underlines why it’s vital we stick with the UN climate change negotiations and secure a global legally binding deal by 2015.”
UMass Sustainable Food and Farming 