In the aftermath of the war, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was accepted by members of the United Nations (U.N.) at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. Among the resolutions in the foundational text is Article 25. It reads, in part: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.”

The right to food seems so basic; in 1948, it seemed unimaginable that we would be where we are today, with 828 million people living in hunger, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization. Most of those people—more than 85 percent—live in areas affected by conflict and war.

In 2015, the U.N. targeted 2030 as the year it would end hunger and food insecurity. In the past decade, we’ve seen catastrophic wars and food crises in South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, Gaza, Ukraine and Somalia topping the list, with tens of millions of their citizens suffering almost unimaginable hardship, hunger and suffering. The populations in those conflict zones risk starvation, because access to food has been either coincidentally or intentionally cut off. 

While the U.N. unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of food insecurity and starvation as a tactic of war in 2018, the resolution isn’t legally binding. The only way the millions of people in conflict zones are getting food that they don’t grow or find themselves is through the efforts of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and nonprofits, often staffed by volunteers who risk their lives to deliver food to people on the front lines.

The circumstances and details of delivery vary considerably. 

“Logistics for delivery of aid differ depending on many factors, from the location, geography and weather to the nature of the disaster, beneficiaries, time of year and level of conflict,” says Christine Quinn Antal, co-founder of the nonprofit Task Force Antal and a veteran with years of experience operating in conflict zones and managing crises. Task Force Antal focuses on providing food, evacuation support and humanitarian aid with a team of elite special operations veterans in conflict zones across the world. “Keeping supply chains safe and secure is always a major focus, so we can maintain confidence that the food and supplies we’re delivering make it to the intended location without any tampering.”

Photography provided by World Central Kitchen.

Delivering aid in Somalia

For decades, Somalia has been enduring conflict and extreme drought. While the country’s Civil War was sparked in 1991 when Siad Barre’s military junta was overthrown, it has since devolved to include multiple warring rebel groups. Currently, more than four million people there are acutely food insecure and 1.7 million children aged five and under are expected to suffer acute malnutrition this year, according to CARE International.

CARE works in 97 countries, in a mission to promote social justice and defeat poverty. Justus Liku, the Kenya-based senior director of Humanitarian Response and Impact, explains that delivering food aid is one measure CARE takes to assist those in need. 

“The drought in Somalia has killed tens of thousands of people and decimated crops and livestock that people depend on for their lives and livelihoods,” says Liku. CARE relies on food imported from nearby Kenya and Ethiopia and imports corn from Western Europe.

It also relies on imported nutritional supplements that malnourished children and parents need, as there is no supplement industry local to Somalia. “Getting food aid to people is very challenging in Somalia because there are so many conflicts, so crossing from one zone to another requires a great deal of planning and coordination.”

To conquer the logistics of delivering food by truck from one conflict zone to another within Somalia, CARE relies on a chain of local connections who meet each other near border crossings and deliver food from one truck to the other. 

“The drivers know each other, and remain in contact,” says Liku. “It is complicated, but [it’s] the best way we have found to get food to people across Somalia.” 

Thankfully, says Liku, mobile phone service is much more dependable in Somalia than in other countries in which CARE works, which enables delivery drivers to utilize GPS when necessary and communicate with each other and the people they’re trying to reach. 

Finding local on-the-ground contacts is key to the NGO Human Appeal’s approach in Somalia, as well as its other efforts in 27 countries, including Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq. In 2023, Human Appeal delivered food and nutritional support to 773,426 people. Each delivery, by design, was different. 

“Local partners know the context and local challenges, and identify duly vetted local implementing partners,” says Owais Khan, deputy CEO of Human Appeal, a nonprofit organization working across the world to deliver aid and fight poverty and injustice. In an email, Khan told Modern Farmer that the group has an established model to assess the ability and capacity of local partners to help with food delivery projects. “The same applies to suppliers who need to be screened, have a solid track record and economically viable prices.”

Understanding each country’s needs, the demographics of the target group, the local diet and preferences and any other specific requirements such as religious or other food codes is essential, says Khan —and frequently, locals are the only ones who can truly decipher these often unwritten rules for outsiders. 

The U.N.’s Humanitarian Response Plan in Somalia is woefully underfunded, with about 9.8 percent of the $1.59 billion needed funded this year.

“There are so many countries and people in need,” says Liku “and not enough funding.”

Photography submitted by World Central Kitchen.

Delivering aid in Gaza 

Food security experts warn that the war between Israel and Hamas has caused a food crisis that threatens every single person living in Gaza. Currently, about half of the population—1.1 million people—are facing severe hunger and the possibility of famine, according to Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an agency that monitors global hunger. Delivering food has been a dangerous endeavor recently, when at least 112 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded amid an aid truck delivery in Gaza. 

World Central Kitchen (WCK), a nonprofit founded in 2010 by Chef José Andrés, has delivered more than 350 million meals around the world. WCK delivered food to Israelis after the October 7 attack that sparked the country’s war with Hamas and now is delivering food to Gaza. 

In early March, WCK began exploring routes into Gaza, eventually partnering with the NGO Open Arms in securing a maritime route through Cyprus. The mission has been dubbed Operation Safeena, which translates to Operation Boat or Vessel in Arabic. 

WCK has come under fire recently following allegations of sexual harassment within the top levels of the organization; however, that does not seem to have hampered its aid work. A spokesperson for World Central Kitchen said that WCK continues “to prepare about 300 tons of humanitarian food aid for a second sailing to Gaza from the Larnaca, Cyprus port.” 

WCK is focused on delivering culturally appropriate, shelf-stable foods, such as beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil and salt. To date, WCK has delivered 39 million meals by land, sea and air to Palestinians. More than 1,500 trucks have been dispatched for on-the-ground deliveries across Gaza from WCK’s Cairo warehouses, and more than 60 community kitchens have been opened in Gaza. During the sacred month of Ramadan, WCK is delivering daily airdrops, the spokesperson said. 

Common Man volunteers delivering food and presents. Photography submitted by Common Man for Ukraine.

Delivering aid in Ukraine 

The war between Russia and Ukraine began in 2014 when the republic of Crimea was invaded by Russian troops in disguise. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion. Today, an estimated 3.7 million people are displaced in Ukraine, and 14.6 million people require humanitarian assistance, including food.

Children are especially vulnerable, says Susan Mathison, who co-founded Common Man for Ukraine in 2022 with Steve Rand, Lisa Mure and Alex Ray.

“When we visited Ukraine to see what we could do, we decided to focus on children, because we came to understand the enormity of what they were facing,” says Mathison. “Hundreds of thousands of children have been sent on trains from Eastern to Western Ukraine by their mothers who hope to keep them safe. Informal safehouses have sprung up to care for 2.5 million children.”

Two of the founding members of Common Man are members of the Plymouth Rotary Club in New Hampshire, and they used that connection to launch their mission.

“We knew we’d have to embed with local organizations on the ground if we wanted to succeed,” says Mathison. “So we called the Rotary presidents in Poland and Ukraine, and from there built an incredible network and system of delivery.”

Thus far, they have delivered more than three million meals to hungry children in more than 100 safehouses across Ukraine, using trucks driven by around 200 volunteers. They deliver locally produced traditional foods such as groat (similar to muesli or granola), canned meat and fresh produce grown by local producers, often to houses in the dead of night, and not necessarily with electricity. 

“Sometimes, I feel like we’re not doing enough,” says Mathison. “How are we really helping if we can only serve a fraction of the people in need? But I’ve been there to see the looks on the faces of the children when they receive the food, and that’s when I realize that what we are doing does matter, because every child matters.”

Hope for Ukraine, a non-profit launched in 2016 by Ukraine native Yuriy Boyechko, has raised more than $8.4 million since the full-scale invasion began and operates under a similar model.

“We realized that millions would need our help,” says Boyechko. “We began organizing food and field kitchens and figured out how to deliver meal kits that would feed families of four for (over a week).”

Currently, Hope for Ukraine is supplying 1,500 families with meal kits every week, with the help of co-partners on the ground and more than 100 volunteer groups, which deliver food to the most hard-hit regions in frontline towns. The non-perishable food they deliver is largely locally sourced, with the goal of boosting the economy, and providing the kinds of food locals are used to. 

“For a lot of people, this is their only lifeline,” says Boyechko. “Their infrastructure has been destroyed, and without this they will have no food. We are also operating five field kitchens with other pop-ups when possible and as needed.”

Currently, an estimated 10 percent of Ukraine’s humanitarian needs are being met, and Mathison says that donations have fallen off precipitously since the October 7 attack in Israel and the ensuing war there. 

“There are so many problems happening in the world, it’s easy to stay frozen,” says Mathison. “But if we could all just focus on one country, or one child, or one project, the world will be a better place. Pick something that will make your heart sing.”

Common Man for Ukraine founders. Photography submitted by Common Man.

Want to donate to an NGO or food charity? Here’s what you should consider: 

To ensure the safety of staff and success of the mission, always look at how the NGO interacts with and incorporates local groups into their work. 

“At the end of the day, any organization you support should be working with the actual citizens and organizations based there,” says Antal. “They are critical to know how to get in and get out, especially in armed conflicts.”

To ensure your funds are actually going to help, ensure that the charity is legally registered and abides by the rules and regulations of its governing body. Also important is that it submits an annual report of its expenses, so you can see exactly where the money is going. 

“A charity with a sustained track record of delivering aid to where it is needed most and regularly reporting its work to its donors is also key,” says Khan. “A professionally managed charity will always have internal policies and procedures that are applied across all internal functions to ensure proper governance and standards.”

In addition to the NGO’s featured above, here are vetted and widely respected organizations which you can feel safe donating money to:

The World Food Programme: Founded in 1963, it is the lead U.N. agency that responds to food emergencies and combats hunger worldwide. 

Oxfam America: A global organization founded in 1942 fighting to end poverty and injustice. 

Action Against Hunger: A global humanitarian organization that takes action against the causes and effects of hunger. 

The post How Does Food Get Delivered to Hungry People in Conflict Zones? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

A recent visit to the northern city of Montreal in February, when temperatures hovered around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, found restaurants and bars that still managed to serve locally grown and produced food and beverages. It drove home the point that, if they can make it work here—we can do it anywhere. 

Photography by Anne-Marie Pellerin – Tourisme Montréal

A long history 

Decades before cities began actively encouraging the growing and consumption of local food, Montreal was on it. In 1936, Montreal launched the first community garden initiative, alongside the Relief Gardens, and later, the Victory Gardens that sprang up as a result of the world wars. Community gardens continued to grow in popularity over the century, with new branches and chapters flourishing in the 1970s. That’s when the concept of “guerilla gardening” became popular in the city, as groups of Portuguese and Italian immigrants began gardening in unused spaces around the city. In 1973, the Victoria Community Garden was founded by the Jewish General Hospital and the Golden Age Foundation, which aimed to create a gardening space for residents over age 55. It’s now the second-largest garden on the island. 

Today, growing and consuming food feels like a cultural imperative.

“We have always valued culture and the arts, and to us, food and wine is part of that,” says Julie Martel, a longtime advocate for local produce and a project manager at the annual food-centric festival Montreal en Lumiere. “As we have all become increasingly aware of the impact of consuming food that is grown far away, Montreal’s institutions and its regular people have become more invested in supporting the local food movement.”

Today, there are 57 urban farming companies in Montreal, including the first urban rooftop greenhouse and the world’s largest urban farming project, Lufa Farms, at 300,000 square feet. 

A view inside one of Lufa Farms greenhouses. Photography submitted.

A culture of support

A proliferation of locally grown food won’t make an impact without a hungry and supportive culture. In Montreal specifically, and Quebec more broadly, that culture is specifically and purposefully fostered.

In 2020, Quebec Agriculture Minister André Lamontagne and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonatan Julien earmarked $100 million to double the size of the province’s greenhouse operations by 2025. Already, the province is 50 percent self-sufficient, providing its citizens with locally grown produce year round, with the goal of reaching 80-percent sufficiency. 

In Montreal, the government-funded convention center—the Palais des congrés de Montreal—is carbon neutral and has invested in several innovative food and ecological initiatives. The Urban Agriculture Lab, which has Canada’s first urban rooftop vineyard, extensive rooftop gardens and pollinating beehives, is housed there. 

But perhaps more importantly, the citizens, event planners and chefs of Montreal actively support these institutions.

“Did you know that spinach grown in the winter is sweeter?” asks Martel. “It’s because it is struggling, and that process releases a chemical that makes it taste sweeter. You discover that, and so much more, as a food lover in Montreal as we all get more creative growing and eating local food year-round.”

Martel treats her robust CSA—which grows its own produce and brings in dairy, poultry and meat from nearby farms in Quebec—like many of us do our grocery store, shopping online and ordering for the week. But she also uses her position of power to ensure that Montreal en Lumiere, a festival that draws in 500,000 visitors and includes events with 52 restaurants in the city, is hyper-local focused. 

“We bring in Michelin-starred chefs and iconic winemakers from across the world to create meals and pairings for the event,” says Martel. “But they are all using locally produced ingredients. When the festival began 25 years ago, it was all about Italian truffles and lemons. Now it’s about Montreal-raised fish, locally grown produce.”

Indeed, there are several now-iconic Montreal food and drinks companies that are regionally beloved but largely unknown outside of the city, simply because most of their goods are consumed by local gourmands.

Lufa Farms, the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse, was founded in 2009, employs more than 600 people and grows 50+ types of produce (including 10 varieties of tomatoes and three varieties of eggplant) across 300,000 square feet on four rooftops. That bounty totals 25,000 pounds a week and goes to 20,000 customers who are able to order customized food baskets. Lufa offers more than 400 pick-up points around the city, and the farm also delivers straight to customers’ doors. 

Several restaurants in Montreal proudly showcase their connection to Lufa Farms and another new local-famous innovator: Opercule. 

Founded in 2017, Opercule farms arctic char sustainably, consuming, it says, 100 to 200 times less water than classic open-circuit fish farms. (It is also powered by hydropower, which is ample in Quebec and much cleaner than alternatives such as coal). The fish are raised without antibiotics or hormones and delivered to the dozens of grocery stores and restaurants with which it works, just hours after being harvested via electric vehicles. Opercule produces around 25 tons of fish per year and harvests fish only once an order is placed.

Other, less obvious locally produced food and drinks businesses are also thriving. Take Distillerie de Montreal. 

Founded by fifth-generation distiller Lilian Wolfelsberger and lawyer and entrepreneur Stéphane Dion, the Distillerie produces about 300,000 bottles across more than two dozen different products, many of them using all local ingredients, says production manager Alexandre Arpin. “We buy mash from our local brewery that sources grain locally, and in a few years, we’ll be using our own grains, which we plan to source from our friends nearby.”

The vast majority of the production is purchased locally, although it does have a cult following in certain pockets of Europe. 

Distillerie also creates several spirits and liqueurs from locally farmed or foraged fruit, including La Pomme Blanche Marie-Jo (made with locally grown apples) and Sureau Elderberry (made with locally harvested elderflowers and berries). 

“We’ve ended up with some of our more interesting products because of things our forager Guy has brought us,” says Arpin. “I have at least 74 plants and mushrooms in some stage of distillation from things he’s brought us.”

Chef Maxime Lizotte. Photography submitted.

Looking ahead

Montreal rides its fame for bagels, poutine and smoked meat hard. But it is also increasingly seeking to honor the traditions and cuisines from the 120 ethnicities that live and thrive there, especially that of its First Nations people. 

In addition to supporting museum collections and festivals highlighting First Peoples’ culture, a First Nations Garden has been opened in the city’s Botanical Garden, and the city’s large-scale festivals are working to bring in and highlight the work of First Nations producer chefs. 

“We have so much to learn from the history and culture of the Indigenous people,” says Martel. “We decided to spotlight Indigenous cuisine at the festival this year, because we recognize how much Indigenous people have to offer in terms of knowledge of the edible plants and spices we still have to discover all around us.”

Maxime Lizotte, an Indigenous chef who worked at some of the country’s top kitchens, agrees. 

“During the pandemic, I decided it was time to focus on my Indigenous roots,” he explains. “I want to not only honor the traditions and lands of my ancestors of the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation but also merge them with the cuisines that influenced me and made me fall in love with cooking and food.”

Much of the food that his ancestors cooked and ate was for survival, he explains. 

“The conditions were harsh,” he says. “A lot of our produce and meat was smoked or dried or both. It was an excellent way to preserve the food and sustain life, but maybe it’s not the way we want to eat today.” 

So, instead of serving up dried berries and simply smoked seal meat, he combines the best of both worlds. 

“I use Indigenous ingredients like seal and wild plants but also pork raised on my ancestral land,” he says. “To me, that’s more logical than serving deer flown in from New Zealand.”

Montreal’s spirit of using what you have on hand but prepared with inspiration from a wide swath of histories and cultures feels extraordinarily 22nd century. 

Hungry to find your own local, progressive, home-grown flavor? Check out the USDA’s CSA finder and LocalHarvest. Then write your local political representative and tell them to take a few pages out of our northern neighbor’s playbook and start funding local farming institutions.

The post If Montreal Can Feed Itself Year-Round, More Cities Can appeared first on Modern Farmer.

No person or plant can emerge unscathed, says Dr. Guillermo Murray-Tortarolo, a researcher at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. His work focuses on understanding the link between climate change and its impact on food production and human societies. As hotter and wetter conditions become more prevalent, so do the fungi, microbes and insects that thrive in those conditions. They can all increase a plant’s likelihood of disease. As well, changes in temperature make it harder for plants to photosynthesize, so crop yields are dropping. 

But while “climate change is affecting absolutely everything,” says Murray-Tortarolo, “some sectors are more impacted than others.” 

Dry and semi-arid ecosystems are seeing record biodiversity losses and challenges in the agricultural sector. 

“The large increments in precipitation variability and seasonality have reduced the certainty of planting times and expected yields, with some extreme examples occurring the last couple of years, like with the red jalapeño for sriracha and Canadian mustard,” he says. That’s right, folks; climate change is not just taking down staple crops, it’s coming for your most beloved condiments. 

Mustard yields are way down

The global mustard market is worth about $6.87 billion, and it is projected to increase by a compound annual growth rate of 5.8 percent through 2029. While mustard seed is native to Europe, World War II disrupted production there, and since then, Canada has become one of the world’s largest producers of yellow, oriental and brown mustard seeds. 

Last year, farmers in Canada planted close to 555,000 acres of mustard seed, producing 161,781 tons, primarily in Saskatchewan. But amid challenging weather conditions, yields have plummeted in recent years. In 2021, mustard yields hovered at 431 pounds an acre, down close to 57 percent from the usual 1,000 pounds per acre. 

That meant soaring prices and—quelle horreur—a distinct absence of mustard from supermarkets in France. “We lost almost everything during the harvest [of] 2021, but every year for the past 15 years has had extreme challenges,” says Élaine Bélanger, vice president of operations and co-owner of Maison Orphée, a Quebec City-based manufacturer of mustard, olive oils and other specialty products. “And because we are manufacturing organic mustard, we are a niche within a niche market. The costs were going way up in every direction, and even as we were able to source some mustard seeds from abroad, we didn’t want to change our recipe too much.”

A mustard field in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Quebec, Canada. (Photo: Anne Richard/Shutterstock)

The mustard Maison Orphée creates is a blend of yellow, brown and oriental seeds, and while Bélanger prioritizes sourcing from its network of growers in Canada, in bad years, it’s had to eat the costs of sourcing from Eastern Europe and beyond. 

“It’s very difficult for us as manufacturers, and for the growers we work with, to know what to invest in,” says Bélanger. “Because it’s not just an increase in temperature. It’s a change in several ways. If growers invest in a variety that is more adaptable to temperature, what about drought?”

With El Niño conditions this year, Murray-Tortarolo says we should all prepare for challenges. 

“This year, an El Niño is predicted, which may bring additional winter rainfall but also extreme conditions,” he says. “While it is too soon to know what to expect in the next planting season, extreme events are expected to be numerous.”

Hot sauce shortages 

Hot sauce shortages have also become increasingly the norm. 

The maker of the beloved sriracha, Huy Fong Foods, had to issue repeated statements to customers apologizing for the shortage of sauce, blaming poor harvests of chili peppers in California, New Mexico and Mexico for the ongoing dearth on supermarket shelves. (At certain points in the past few years, resellers have been offering the usual $5 bottles for up to $150 to desperate hot-heads.)

As it turns out, where we’re growing these peppers is part of the problem—and climate change is amplifying the issues. 

“Peppers first emerged in the rainforest,” says Dr. Danise Coon, a senior research specialist at New Mexico State University’s Agriculture Experiment Station. “And over 6,000 years ago, we domesticated them and eventually moved them to arid climates.”

Huy Fong Food sriracha hot sauce for sale in a Los Angeles supermarket. (Photo: calimedia/Shutterstock)

While we bred and adapted peppers for dry heat, it is now both hotter and drier in the regions in which they are cultivated.

“There are so many more extremes in recent years,” says Coon. “Last year was the hottest on record with 105 degrees or higher for 60 days during the growing season. In New Mexico, there’s a lot of debate going on about drip irrigation, which just adds to the challenges.”

The New Mexico red and green chili production was valued at around $46.2 million in 2022, but farmers also grow cayenne peppers and jalapeños there.

As the weather gets hotter and drier, and widespread irrigation appears less viable, researchers like Coon are working hard at coming up with solutions. “We are working on several projects aimed at combating climate change. We’re trying to breed chilis to produce higher yields under greater stress and drier conditions.”

Her colleague, Dennis Lozada, who specializes in plant genomics and molecular biology at New Mexico State University, says that examining the DNA sequence of individual chilis has been invaluable.

“We are looking at how we can even change things like root morphology to create higher adaptability,” says Lozada. 

They are working with an “endless” number of varieties, because there are thousands of wild species, which they can then cross-breed and hybridize. For Coon, it’s not just about saving hot sauce.

“In New Mexico, growing and eating chilis is a cultural thing,” says Coon. “It’s part of our heritage.”

Ketchup’s challenges 

Ketchup’s market size is gargantuan. Arguably, so are the challenges it is facing. The ketchup market was valued at around $31.9 billion in 2022, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 4.58 percent through 2028. 

Three years of searing temperatures in Australia, Spain and California—three of the world’s top tomato-producing areas—has led to a drop in tomato paste stocks, which not only goes into ketchup bases but is also key for pizza and marinara sauce. 

“Our market demands, compounded by climate change, have completely outpaced the ability of staple crops to evolve and adapt to a warmer climate,” says Dr. Amy Concilio, an associate professor of environmental science at St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX. 

California produces about 30 percent of the world’s tomatoes and 95 percent of the tomatoes used in canned goods in the US. Harvests were down 10 percent in 2022, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, and that trend is set to continue if things don’t change. 

This is where scientists come in. Artificial intelligence apps will be part of the solution, from helping improve weather models to reducing water consumption, says Concilio. 

And mega-companies such as Kraft Heinz (the world’s top manufacturer of ketchup) are pouring money into research and drastically reducing their environmental footprint as well. In 2022, its efforts allowed it to reduce water use by 8.7 percent overall and by 16.07 percent in high-risk watershed areas, according to its 2023 ESG Report. The company also sourced 75 percent of its tomatoes sustainably. 

The ketchup market is valued at around $31.9 billion. (Photo: Shutterstock)

But perhaps even more importantly, the company is investing in its own breeding program, dubbed HeinzSeed.

“At our core, Kraft Heinz is an agricultural company,” says Patrick Sheridan, vice president of global agriculture and sustainability at Kraft Heinz. The company is the largest purchaser of processing tomatoes in the world and it is serious about maintaining its edge amid a changing climate, says Sheridan.

“We’re aiming to purchase 100 percent sustainably sourced Heinz ketchup tomatoes by 2025,” he says. “One of the most significant challenges we face is water availability.”

Several years of below-average precipitation, coupled with decreased water availability in the regions in which the tomatoes are produced, with further declines anticipated, says Sheridan, has led the company to invest in improving irrigation technology and protocols and next-generation HeinzSeeds that are more heat, drought and disease tolerant.

For the foreseeable future, those who want to buy their condiments ready-made may have to face inflationary prices and shortages.

***

Hungry for a more eco-friendly and dependable alternative that is also kind to your wallet? You’ll never run out of sauces and spices if you grow the ingredients to flavor your foods yourself:

Grow mustard greens

Mustard greens are cooler-climate plants, and they tend to thrive in temperatures between 45 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. You can grow them in raised beds outside or containers inside. Make sure they have access to six hours of direct sunlight. 

Take a plastic planting box with holes in the bottom and fill with prepared planting mix. Scatter mustard seeds over the soil, moisten lightly but don’t soak. Loose soil works best. Cover with cling wrap, and after two to three days, you’ll see seedlings. Remove the wrap, moisten the soil. After five or so days of growing, they’re ready to be harvested, or you can let them grow for up to three weeks. Use an organic vegetable fertilizer to feed these plants, following the directions on the label. Reseed the soil when you’re ready for another crop. 

Mustard greens are delicious on their own or sauteed in olive oil with salt and pepper. But if you’re eager to try your hand at making mustard itself, try this easy recipe from HGTV.

Grow serrano peppers

Serrano peppers need six to eight hours of sunlight every day, so make sure you place them near a south-facing window. (Alternatively, use artificial lights designed for gardening.) Also keep in mind that serranos are used to warm temperatures: 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit ideally. 

Take a plastic planting box with holes in the bottom and fill with prepared planting mix. Sow seeds about ¼ inch deep, and space them one to two feet apart. Loose soil is ideal. You want to keep soil moist but not wet. Use an organic vegetable fertilizer to feed these plants, following the directions on the label. Pepper plants self-pollinate, but you can shake them occasionally to help spur them on. 

Serrano chilis will spice up your life in a number of ways, but if you want to turn the chilis into hot sauce, try this basic recipe from the Food Network. 

Grow tomatoes 

Tomato plants need sun, and you may need some artificial gardening lights as an assist, especially in the winter. Seedlings need 18 to22 hours of light when growing indoors. Once they have color, they need less and can move to a window with plenty of light. Smaller tomatoes grow better inside. Keep in mind that tomatoes also love temperatures of 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Give your seedlings a boost by giving your seed-starting trays a little heat (the top of your fridge is a great spot). Once the seedlings are six inches tall, transfer them to a larger plastic planting container with potting mix. Keep the plants moist but not wet. Use an organic vegetable fertilizer to feed these plants, following the directions on the label. Tomato plants self-pollinate, but you can shake them occasionally to help spur them on. 

Tomatoes are great on salads, in sandwiches—even solo with salt and olive oil. But we’ve got your back if you want to use yours to make ketchup: This Food Network recipe is a good place to start.

The post Climate Change Is Coming for Your Favorite Condiments appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But when you look at it from the outside, that diversity is rarely seen. Often, the people actually running wine businesses are white and male, and their stories are the ones that get told. 

The fact that the wine industry is powered by a heterogenous group but run largely by white men, some say, is a matter of what the wine industry—and the broader culture—values and prioritizes. 

“People don’t see the wine industry as diverse, but if you include the story of the people in the vineyard, we are very diverse,” says Sofia Torres-McKay, co-owner of the Dundee Hills, OR-based Cramoisi Vineyard and co-founder of AHIVOY (Asociación Hispana de la Industria del Vino en Oregon Y Comunidad), an organization that aims to empower the largely Latinx community of vineyard stewards through education. “To me, the work that is done in the vineyards is often the most interesting part of the story of wine. ”

But the reality, says Torres-McKay, is the people who are there in the vineyard every day, caring for the grapes, shape the outcome of the wine just as much as its terroir—the environmental factors: climate, soil and elevation. 

During the pandemic, when the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and #MeToo movements gained support from Americans (about 67 percent of people supported BLM in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, and about 49 percent of people support #MeToo), both individuals and brands looked for ways to support businesses, as well as hire and promote people who more accurately reflect the population of the country. For a moment, it seemed like the tide had turned. Not only would the people who do the work get recognition for it, but they might be given the opportunity to move up in the industry. 

What has the hope and promise led to? Three years after Black Lives Matter and #MeToo gained widespread acceptance, not only has the support for BLM dropped to just 51 percent, the progress and opportunities that seemed just around the corner appear, to many, to be further away than ever.

Sofia Torres-McKay with her husband and dog. Photography courtesy of Torres-McKay.

Breaking down diversity 

America is an increasingly diverse country. A recent study of the voting population throws the numbers into context: About 38 percent of voters aged 18-25 identify as people of color, compared with 32 percent of millennials, 28 percent of Generation X and 21 percent of Baby Boomers. The US is 50.5 percent women to 49.5 percent male. The percentage of the population that identifies as LGBTQ+ is now 7.1 percent, double what it was in 2012, according to a recent Gallup poll. 

But the percentage of BIPOC individuals who own a winery or serve as head winemakers is less than one percent, and women account for just around 14 percent of winemakers (up from 10 percent in 1890, which must constitute one of the slowest growth curves in history). There has been some progress though: 38 percent of winery owners or co-owners are now women. There are no comprehensive assessments of the percentage of openly LGBTQ+ winemakers and winery owners, but the numbers, according to observers, do not come close to reflecting the population.  

BIPOC Block Party by Our Legacy Harvested.

Economic challenges and progress 

Marketing professor and wine business researcher Dr. Monique Bell has conducted two groundbreaking studies of Black wine entrepreneurs, providing a snapshot of the challenges and advances. 

When comparing the two studies, Bell found that the biggest issue for Black entrepreneurs was finding funding. “[It’s] actually increased between 2020 and 2023, with 50 percent now reporting that as their number one challenge, versus 43 percent in 2020,” says Bell. Respondents also believe “that Black wine entrepreneurs face racial bias and racism more in the wine industry than they would in other industries.”

In lieu of support from financial institutions, almost nine out of 10 Black-run wineries either self-fund their businesses or rely on family and friends for support. More importantly, only 50 percent of Black-owned businesses were profitable in the past year. Despite that, 90 percent of respondents say that they are more optimistic about the future of their business than they were a year ago.

Bell says that unless the industry, government and trade associations step in with financial and distribution support, the rise of Black wine entrepreneurs will be slow and painful. 

Organizations such as Our Legacy Harvested, founded in 2020 by Tiquette Bramlett, are hoping to bridge some of those gaps in support by bringing BIPOC winemakers together. 

“I have been in the industry at this point for close to a decade,” says Bramlett. “In 2020, it became clear to me that people who look like me aren’t finding a lot of opportunities in the wine industry. I wanted to create a community that isn’t just about bringing in more Black and Brown people, but about connecting members of wine country who want to increase the diversity of their staff, and also support more BIPOC businesses generally.”

Bramlett wanted the process to feel organic, she says, because she thought it would foster longer-lasting and deeper connections. Her first step was to throw a party.

“We did a socially distant party in [Oregon’s] wine country, inviting 35 BIPOC vendors,” says Bramlett. “Winemakers came and made connections that are still growing and thriving today.”

But Bramlett wanted to do more, and so did members of the wine community. Next came paid internships at wineries, with a funded place to leave and transportation to and around wine country included. 

“The first year, 2022, we had more than 100 applicants and just four places to fill, which shows how much of a hunger there is for this kind of program,” she says. The internships were a success and will continue, along with shorter opportunities for folks who can’t take three months off of their jobs and lives to move to wine country. 

The Our Legacy Harvested block party.

Offering new opportunities for visibility 

“While the vast majority of the people caring for grapes in the vineyard are LatinX, they are unseen, and not really considered by the average wine consumer,” says Torres-McKay. “Not only that, but they don’t have the opportunity to see what their work turns into. Most people who spend their careers working in vineyards never see a tasting room or cellar.”

That creates a disconnect for all. 

AHIVOY, Torres-McKay’s education organization, offers classroom work at a community college, visits to wineries, cellar tastings and visits to parts of the winery with which workers might not be familiar, such as the bottling line. “That way, if they’re pulling leaves, they know why. It will lead to riper fruit, which will make the wine taste better. Once they understand why they’re doing things, they become more invested in the process, and can ask better questions and do a better job.”

The results, she says, have been fruitful for the dozens of workers who have gone through the program since it was first offered in 2020. 

Photography courtesy of CHO Wines.

Like the LatinX community, the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community is much more diverse than people realize. Lois Cho founded the Oregon AAPI Food & Wine Festival this year to educate wine lovers and shatter preconceived notions about the community.

The inaugural event, held this past May in Dayton, OR, offered bites from five AAPI chefs and wine tastings from five AAPI wineries. It sold out quickly, and she plans to grow and evolve the events and offerings next year. AAPI wineries have already reached out to them, and they already have 13 wineries from across the country on board for 2024. 

But Cho has more in mind than simply changing the narrative around AAPI food and wine. 

“When we reached out to a distributor initially, they told us not to highlight our ethnicity,” says Cho. “At first, it seemed like maybe that would make sense, because it’s typically thought of as such a traditional European business. But it actually ended up inspiring me to embrace and lean into it. We’re opening a tasting room this spring and we’re going to lean into nontraditional pairings, like an Asian-inspired charcuterie board and Asian-inspired pizzas like Korean Spicy Chicken.”

At an Oregon AAPI Food & Wine dinner. Photography courtesy of Lois Cho.

Providing support and outreach 

Remy Drabkin, one of a handful of prominent queer winemakers in the country, also became the first queer-identified person to hold the office of mayor of McMinnville.

“I think now, especially as many states enact laws that create hostile environments for trans and queer people, sharing our voices and experiences is more important than ever,” says Drabkin. 

The Remy Wines vintner founded Wine Country Pride to amplify voices in the local Oregon wine community and more broadly through regular fundraisers and events that also in turn provide scholarships for LGBTQ+ youth and support organizations that advocate for the community. 

In 2022, Remy Wines hosted the first inaugural Queer Wine Fest, to celebrate queer-made and grown wines from across the country. 

“It has turned into its own thing, which is really inspiring to see,” says Drabkin. Queer people in the wine industry “is not a new thing… but now we’re creating a framework that has made and will continue to make us stronger than we’ve ever been.”

Wineries should continue to push for greater diversity and inclusion because it’s the right thing to do, through job outreach and good old-fashioned just-for-fun event activations. But ultimately, money talks. But what it’s telling us may surprise folks: Study after study shows that businesses that empower BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals and women make more money—a lot more money. 

“I see what we do as an opportunity for everyone, not a confrontation between two different groups,” says Torres-McKay. “Wineries and vineyard managers also benefit, because they have a stronger and more empowered and informed team.”

The post How Diverse is the Wine Industry Now? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

At the same time, the US  market for cultivated truffles is taking off. Truffle farms were virtually non-existent in the US 15 years ago; today, there are dozens of viable commercial farms and close to 200 active members of the North American Truffle Growers’ Association (NATGA). Farmed truffles do not differ in taste or aroma from their wild counterparts, and in cultivating them, producers can better control location, light and irrigation.

Problem solved? Not so much. No farmer in North America—and only one farmer in France, with limited success—has thus far been able to commercially farm the most expensive and prized truffle of them all, the Alba. 

What are Truffles?

Truffles are neither plant nor animal. They are the spore-bearing fruit of a fungus that grows underground, in very particular micro-environments near host trees. Poplar, beech and oak trees are the most common hosts; truffles receive food from the tree’s roots,l and, in exchange, deliver nutrients to the soil in which the tree grows. When harvested (this is done by scent, typically by trained Italian Lagotto Romagnolo dogs, and occasionally with the help of a trained pig, such as the Spanish black pig), they resemble lumpen, soil-flecked potatoes or,  occasionally, a particularly off-putting donut hole. 

The global truffle market is currently valued at around $378.7 million with a potential to grow up to $906.3 million by 2033. There are hundreds of species, but only a handful of edible ones and only a few widely prized, highly valuable types. 

Bianchetto truffles, also known as white truffles, are often mistaken for Albas. They grow wild in pockets across Europe, and they have been successfully farmed in several regions of the world, including the US. They are described as having a similar flavor profile, with more pronounced notes of garlic than fermented cheese. These truffles can sell for up to $1,000 a pound. 

Winter Black Truffles, known by many as Périgord truffles, the region of France in which they rose to fame, also grow wild in Spain, France and Italy. Earthy and nutty, with sweet notes, they have been farmed successfully for centuries, and they are the most common farmed truffle in the US. Périgord truffles can sell for up to $2,000 a pound. 

The most elusive truffle, the Alba, has famously evaded the centuries-long effort of cultivation. Described as garlicky, with notes of fermented cheese, it is deeply musky and looks like an off-white overgrown fingerling potato, crossed with ginger root.. A bidder in Hong Kong recently paid more than €180,000 (or $190,881) for  700 grams (24.69 ounces) of Alba, the equivalent of $7,731.10 an ounce. It only grows in Alba, Italy and one secret corner of France, where a team of scientists managed to harvest a handful following decades of investment and effort. The successful experiment was hailed as a breakthrough by scientists who have struggled to transplant the finicky truffle to climates with the exact same soil, climate and array of flora and fauna. The experiment has not, as far as we know, been successfully replicated elsewhere.

Hunting for truffles. Photography courtesy of Kendall Jackson.

Wild truffles are hurting in a warming climate

Climate change affects the range in  which  many plant, animal and fungi species grow, and truffles are particularly vulnerable. 

“The hot, dry summers and general climate extremes we have been seeing across Europe are very bad for truffles,” says Dr. Brian Steidinger, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Konstanz and the lead author of a study on the effect of climate change on truffles. “The sub-populations of truffles that are most valued appear to be the most vulnerable to climate extremes. We found in our study that once trees go into drought conditions they cannot provide as much carbon to truffles, which means the harvests plummet.”

Steidinger’s study showed that for every 1-degree C increase in summer temperature over a site’s 30-year mean caused a 22-percent drop in productivity for the Périgord truffle. A single summer temperature spike of 3-degrees C was enough to halt production completely.

Impacts are still being studied, but recent harvests in Alba have also been disappointing, something that experts blame on rising temperatures and drought. 

Jean-Francois Magnan, the estate manager at the uber-luxe Auberge resort Domaine des  Etangs in Southwest France, says this past year’s truffle harvest was the “lowest” he’d seen in seven years.  The wholesale markets were low, and wholesale prices soared by more than 50 percent, he notes, making it challenging to deliver the truffles that visitors and tourists expect during France’s and Italy’s various truffle festivals and imperiling their future. 

Margaret Townsend cultivating truffles. Photography courtesy of Margaret Townsend.

US producers struggle with cultivated truffles

As the number of wild truffles plummets, harvests of cultivated truffles are on the rise across Europe, Australia and North America. Not that it has been easy going, especially for the most ambitious farmers. 

“I planted 25 acres of inoculated trees to grow the most expensive commercially viable truffle, the Winter Black Truffle,” says Margaret Townsend, founder of the NewTown Truffiere farm in Holland, Kentucky, and president of the North American Truffle Growers’ Association.   

She planted her farm in 2011 and did not get her first harvest until 2020.  “And that first year, all I got was 13 truffles. So, calling it productive after eight-and-a-half years would be a stretch.”

 The time between planting and harvest varies—the minimum wait is thought to be six years and harvest doesn’t truly ramp up until several years after that. “Ramping up” is in the eye of the beholder, she notes. Townsend refrained from sharing the size of her record crop, but she says she hopes to land at 35 pounds of truffles an acre eventually. A typical truffle weighs a few ounces, but it can grow to more than one pound. 

“I see the truffle industry in the US like the wine industry,” she says. “We are the pioneers. We’re laying the groundwork for the future. And I’m having a wonderful time.”

Townsend estimates that there are around 175 commercial growers in the NATGA, some with a handful of trees and others with dozens of acres. The highest production numbers she’s heard of in the U.S. is about 35 pounds per producing acre.

“But what they don’t tell you is that not every acre is productive,” says Townsend.

She believes that “we are at an inflection point in North America. It’s exciting to see us grow. The next generation will take off I think. In Australia, where they’ve been doing this for longer, some farmers are getting up to 60 pounds an acre.” 

Tucker Taylor, director of Kendall Jackson’s culinary gardens and head truffle maestro for Jackson Family Wines, agrees that boom times are coming. 

“The Jackson Family is thinking several generations down the line,” says Taylor. “They want to diversify and do more than make wine, so, in 2011, they planted 10 acres of inoculated oaks and hazelnuts with the goal of growing black truffles in Sonoma County.” 

They lucked out and were able to harvest after six years, but it wasn’t until the past few that things really started to get interesting.

“Our biggest harvest so far has been 65 pounds, but I think this year is looking really good,” Taylor says. “The market is strong, too. I created a garden for Chef Thomas Keller and worked for him for five years, so I have a lot of relationships with chefs who are eager to get our truffles.”

Not every single truffle is Michelin-star dining worthy though; he estimates that one-third are ultra-premium, one-third are excellent and the final third aren’t “ideal” for eating. Truffles are typically graded based on their variety, weight, perfume and age. The United Nations Standard is considered an industry baseline. 

The top ones go to top-flight chefs for between $750 and $1,200 a pound. The second best are utilized by Kendall Jackson’s culinary team (typically in truffle butters or shaved over pasta) and the lowest tier is frozen and used to inoculate trees that aren’t currently producing well.  

North Carolina’s Burwell Farms, the largest truffle producer in the country, is growing Bianchetto truffles and is the first in the US to do so. 

“We’re growing them on loblolly pine trees because the results have been so much better than other truffle farming systems in North America,” says Jeffrey Coker, a plant biologist and president of Burwell Farms. 

The first trees were planted in 2014, but the harvest came much faster—just three years. And the production level for Bianchetto truffles is high: about a pound per tree per year. 

Because the farmed truffle industry is so young, farmers are often at a loss to explain why certain regions, farms and varieties seem to thrive. In the end, many, like Townsend, return to wine industry analogies. 

“It took winegrowers decades to figure out which grapes thrived in certain regions and under what ideal conditions,” she says. “We just started to explore that ourselves.”

That need for raw data and information sharing is the reason the NATGA is so essential to the future. 

“If we weren’t all as open with sharing our successes and failures, we wouldn’t have come this far, this fast,” says Townsend. 

Truffled bourbon eggnog. Photography courtesy of Margaret Townsend.

Will Farmed Truffles Be as Vulnerable as Cultivated Truffles? 

Climate change is hitting every region of the world, but some farmers argue that cultivated truffles may fare better than their wild counterparts, as they can control the environment better by manipulating irrigation and light sources. 

Others are less convinced. 

“Climate change will affect farmed truffles in the same way that it affects wild truffles,” says Dr. Charles LeFevre, a mycologist, truffle-growing pioneer and co-founder of the Oregon Truffle Festival. “There are limits to the extent that farmers can modify their practices to adapt. One of the principal concerns is a reduction in summer rainfall, which can be overcome if irrigation water is possible.” 

But it’s not always possible. In the past few years here in the Western US, says LeFevre, “several productive farms lost their crops because irrigation water was cut off mid-summer due to record drought conditions.”

When the harvest is good though, says LeFevre, “they sell themselves.”

Taylor agrees, saying that many of the locally minded chefs he works with wouldn’t even consider putting a European truffle on their menu. 

“I work with Michelin-starred chefs who only feature local food, and they want the freshest ingredients possible,” he says. “Several have put truffles on their menu for the first time because they know ours are from Sonoma and are delivered the day of harvest. Even with overnight shipping, French and Italian truffles still take almost a week to get here, losing aroma and flavor every step of the way.”

The growing domestic truffle market is also creating opportunities for European-style festivals that draw curious eaters and explorers and grow the entire business. When the Oregon Truffle Festival was launched in 2006, LeFevre says there were no working truffle dogs in the Western US. “Now, there are about 10 businesses in the Pacific Northwest alone that include truffle dog training among their specializations,” he says. “We have a population of trained truffle dogs in the thousands. The improved quality of truffles produced by harvest with trained dogs is driving prices up to the point where they are beginning to rival those of the famous French black truffles.”

The post As Climate Change Endangers Wild Truffles, US Producers Try Cultivation Instead appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In a recent peer-reviewed analysis published in the journal Science Advances, the authors warn that we have crossed six of nine planetary boundaries—including the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and genetic diversity or the current extinction rate of species—imperiling our ability to live and thrive in functioning societies. 

Activists are calling on President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and demanding that the companies most responsible for climate change own up and change. But it is becoming increasingly clear that we all have to take personal action, be it reducing our reliance on transportation (the largest source of emissions in the US) to making more sustainable food and drinks choices.

But what does making sustainable drinks choices actually mean? There is no agreed-upon definition of “sustainable”, “eco-friendly”, “green” or “natural”. A bottle of wine declaring itself to be all of these things very well might be—or it might not be. 

While the Federal Trade Commission is responding to years of formal complaints and officially taking action on greenwashing and deceptive marketing around sustainability, it’s unclear how ironclad the new rules will be and when they’ll be put into place. 

While there are certain third-party certified labels that can clue you into what really went into the growing and production of a bottle of wine, beer or spirits, there are also other clues that will let you know if a producer is authentically sustainable or striking a pose. 

Canned wine can be a better option over bulky bottles. Photography courtesy of Sipwell.

Seek out lighter, alternative options 

As your mom always tells you, presentation is important. That is why, for decades, bigger and fancier bottles of wine, spirits and beer were used as shorthand for quality. There was no reason beyond aesthetics messaging for still wine producers to put their wares in heavy bottles. (Sparkling wine is a bit different; the built-up pressure of carbon dioxide in sparkling wine can cause lighter bottles to explode).  Surely, the thinking went, if this producer can afford to put their wares in a gilded and embossed bottle that requires two hands to lift, it must be good?

But it’s that packaging that is responsible for a shocking proportion of a product’s carbon footprint: an estimated 40 percent for beer, 29 percent for wine and 20 percent for spirits. Thankfully, producers are taking note. 

Simply opting for lighter bottles is one option. Bodega Catena Zapata in Argentina is reducing the weight of some of its  bottles to 380 from 700 grams starting in 2024, a change that is projected to reduce the carbon emissions of its bottles by an estimated 21 percent, says managing director Laura Catena. This reduction is part of an ongoing effort that will continue in the coming years. Overall as a company, Catena Zapata has already reduced its bottle weight from 2010 through today by 40 percent. 

“We are targeting our highest-volume wines first because we know this will make the biggest difference,” says Catena. 

How to tell if a bottle of wine is light? Pick it up: 380 grams is about 0.83 pounds, or the same weight as a can of soda. 

At Tablas Creek in Paso Robles, CA, which produces around 30,000 cases annually, second-generation proprietor Jason Haas has drastically reduced bottle weights and become one of the first premium US brands to offer wine in boxes. 

Haas says the company transitioned to lighter bottles in 2010, as it began farming organically and reducing waste across its production, from grape to glass. Tablas slashed the weight of its bottles almost in half, to 16.5 ounces from 31.5, but was moved to release a limited-edition boxed wine in 2022 after learning that boxes reduce the carbon footprint by 84 percent. While Tablas made 2,000 boxes of wine, or about 650 cases (two percent of the production), Haas calculated that, after just 10 years, it would  save 1.37 million pounds of glass. There has been approximately zero blowback from customers on both. 

“We got almost universal encouragement on lighter bottles, partly because of the environmental impact, but mostly because the bigger bottles are a pain to lift, handle and store,” says Haas, adding that the $95 boxed wine has also been embraced for its portability and the fact that bag-in-box wine preserves wine for several weeks, making it a great option for people who want just one glass of great wine a day. (And hey, if Vogue thinks boxed wine is cool, maybe projected growth rates of 5.7 percent through 2033 aren’t as off-base as they sound, given wines’ overall declining sales.)

Others are transitioning from bottled beer and wine to cans. The transition from bottles to cans for breweries has been steady and smooth, with brewers saying that cans protect the beer from light, are more recyclable and don’t interfere with flavors. (About 63.4 percent of craft beer on the market is in cans, an enormous increase from five years ago, when just 33.5 percent of craft beer was sold in cans, according to NielsenIQ. After decades of beer in bottles, cans account for a lion’s share of both on- and off-premise beer sales. 

Wine and spirits are still distributed primarily in bottle form, but canned cocktail sales are on the rise, and more and more wineries are offering canned wines, with a projected compound annual growth rate through 2028 of 13.2 percent. 

“Cans are recycled at about twice the rate of bottles and have a 45-percent lower carbon footprint than bottled wine,” says Hilary Cocalis, founder of Sipwell Wine Company, a California-based canned wine company recognized as the Best Canned Wine of 2022 by Wine Spectator. “Cans also require 60-percent less packaging to ship than the equivalent volume of bottled wine and can be recycled infinitely.” 

A cork harvest. Photography courtesy of APCOR.

 Start with the stopper 

Something as simple as the stopper on a wine or spirits bottle can have an outsize impact on the sustainability of the overall product. Cork is not only biodegradable, it is sourced from living trees in a completely regenerative process for centuries. Cork farmers harvest cork for two months a year from trees that live for up to 250 years, and can be harvested at least 15 times during its lifetime. Trees are harvested every nine years and regenerate between harvests.

“Using a cork stopper has a direct measurable contribution to a better environment,” says Carlos de Jesus, operational director of the Portuguese Cork Association. 

Indeed, according to a study conducted by Ernst and Young and commissioned by Corticeira Amorim, one single cork closure captures 309 grams of carbon for still wine and 562 grams for sparkling wine, offsetting the carbon footprint of glass wine bottles, which release between 300 and 500 grams of carbon on average during production. For spirits bottles, cork captures an estimated 148 grams per stopper. 

The carbon offset is great, says de  Jesus, but the contribution goes deeper.

“In addition to playing a great role in carbon retention, cork oak forests also create well-paid agricultural jobs, foster biodiversity, regulate water cycles and protect against forest fires,” he notes.  

Cork closure, check. But also look for extraneous plastic and foil closures around those corks. The capsule on the top of a bottle can look pretty, but it’s a pain to remove and there’s no true need for one. They cost money (which is then passed onto you), the ore from which tin is made is not renewable and foil capsules cannot be recycled in many municipalities. It’s more expensive garbage for the town dump, in other words. 

That’s why several producers, including Kings Carey Wines in Lompoc, CA, have opted to go topless. 

“The foil costs us about $1 a bottle, so we’ve saved thousands already by opting to go foil-free,” says winemaker James Carey. “We’ve also saved on shipping and prevented needless waste. I know some people like them, but it just entails too much waste to rationalize it. Small steps like that can make big impacts, slowly, but surely, which is why we take action where we can.”

The first bottle washer at Staub Brewery, circa the 1940s. Photography courtesy of Staub Brewery.

Pennsylvania’s Straub Brewery produces one of—if not the—country’s only reusable beer bottles. 

“It used to be that reusable bottles were the only way to go, but they’ve really been completely phased out,” says CEO William Brock. “We stick to it because it makes sense and prevents waste. It also saves resources and money, which we pass on to the consumer.”

The reusable beer bottles Straub offers last up to a decade, and they are about 20 percent cheaper than the throwaways, says Brock. While it accounts for only about 12 percent of Straub’s total production, Brock plans to stick to it for as long as he can. 

“Because we’re one of the only breweries still offering this, the bottle-washing machine we use is practically one of a kind at this point,” says Brock. “It requires a little extra effort, but we see it as foundational and part of our mission to just be good corporate citizens.”

One of the sneakiest ways to cut carbon is by snagging wines, ciders and beers by the glass when dining out—from kegs. Kegs, it is estimated, remove about half of all single-use beer containers from bars and restaurants’ waste streams. In the US alone, that accounts for billions of containers. While sipping suds from pints has been one of the preferred ways to consume cider and beers for decades, wine lovers and producers have been slower to embrace the phenomena. 

Haas is all in though. 

“Just this year we’ve moved to pouring most tasting room wines out of a keg,” says Haas. “We estimate that this saves us from creating about 10,000 bottles a year.”

In addition to eliminating waste and reducing the carbon footprint of wine, because kegged wine maintains its freshness (in bottles, the wine is repeatedly exposed to oxygen, which degrades its quality), it stays good to the last drop. 

One restaurant, Sixty Vines, is so bullish on kegged wine that its entire operation revolves around it. Founded in Dallas, TX in 2016, the brand has grown quickly, and it now includes eight restaurants in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee and (soon) Virginia. Jeff Carcara, CEO of Sixty Vines, says it  launched to “reimagine wine culture” and partner with ultra-premium wine brands such as  Charles Heidsieck, Krupp Brothers, Ken Wright and M. Chapoutier not normally—to say the least—associated with keg parties. 

They serve an average of 15,000 kegs a year across their restaurants, saving 400,000 bottles of wine a year from the landfill. 

“By saving millions of bottles annually and collaborating with renowned winemakers, we champion the environmental benefits of kegged wines,” says Carcara. “Kegs have a 90-percent lower carbon footprint than glass bottles, aligning with our commitment to sustainability. We’re also excited to introduce a younger generation to premium varietals and propel kegging into the mainstream. ”  

When it comes to true sustainability, believing what a producer is saying is tempting. But there’s no way to ensure that your interpretation of “eco-friendly” is the same as theirs. 

As Carey says, small steps can make big impacts—but only if a lot of us take them. Bottom line: For now, don’t believe everything you read on a drink label. 

The post Scouting Out Eco-Friendly Drinks in a Sea of Greenwashing appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“It felt really precious. There were these high-end restaurants claiming to be completely committed to the farm-to-table movement, and yet, their wine lists are completely global. It was like, ‘Why serve this local swill? We want wine from Napa and Italy!’” says Marshall.  “We decided we would celebrate the fact that New York City is in the heart of one of the best wine regions in the world.”

But it hasn’t always been easy. 

“There was a lot of pushback on the wine list when we opened,” explains Marshall. “People would freak out at the idea of drinking a New York Chardonnay instead of one from California. But we learned how to curate the wine list to make it work.”

Marshall offers only wines that are rated 90 points or higher by critics at major media outlets such as Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast. While most of the 110 wines on his list are classic, there are “plenty of by the bottle options for people who want to geek out and try something really out there.”

Marshall notes that, today, “New York wines are much more accepted and represented on New York City wine lists. It’s amazing what a difference a decade makes.”

But Marshall is just one of the farm-to-table restaurateurs trying to balance a local ethos with an expectation of global drinks. And things have changed a lot since the farm-to-table movement first took hold.

Chef Charlie Marshall of The Marshall. Phtography by Wesley Salim.

One of the first gourmet farm-to-table restaurants in the U.S. to enjoy international acclaim was Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Opened in 1971, the reception was extraordinary,  setting the stage for what was to come over the next several decades. 

Between 1994 and 2019, the number of farmers markets grew to 8,771 from 1,755, according to the USDA. Farmers markets and farm-to-fork restaurants are proliferating because most—about 73 percent, according to a Gallup poll—want to support locally grown food. But there was—and is—a catch. 

Chefs and restaurateurs look at wine, spirits and beer as a separate category of food in their inventory. Unlike lettuce or beef, which can be produced anywhere, certain types of wine, spirits and beer, by definition, must be made in and procured from certain regions. Think Champagne, Scotch or Berliner Weisse.

Even restaurants in regions that are famous for their locally produced libations, such as California, regularly fly in wine, spirits and beer from across the globe. (It should be noted that Chez Panisse’s drinks list is decidedly global). 

To be fair, pairing drinks with thoughtfully crafted cuisine is challenging—and diners who happen to have landed in a farm-to-table restaurant may not be card-carrying members of the Slow Food and Wine movements.  At most farm-to-table emporiums, including Chez Panisse, that means the locavore sentiments stop at the kitchen door. 

For chef John Conlin, that’s a fair trade to make. The decision came to him during the pandemic, when he had an epiphany. 

“I was working as head chef at a fine dining seafood restaurant in Portland, OR that sourced fish from all over the world,” says Conlin. “They were gorgeous, line-caught specimens, but every morning in the kitchen, I’d have to wade through a ton of packaging and Styrofoam to get to the best produce overnighted from 2,000 miles away.”

Meanwhile, he saw his farmer friends struggling to get restaurants to buy their food. 

“That’s how Tercet was born,” says Conlin. It offers a seven-course tasting menu sourced from local waters and fields that rotates constantly depending on availability. Its wines, though, have a global footprint. 

Sommelier Michael Branton explains in an email that “wine is a bedrock component to the Tercet experience.” 

Because their kitchen operates using very specific farm-to-table rules, Branton wanted the wine program to be less limiting, allowing for more creative and diverse pairing options. 

Branton doesn’t just bring in anything that catches his fancy though. He focuses on lesser-known vintners from legendary regions such asBourgogne and Napa, especially if they have an interesting story, and strong sustainability initiatives in place. 

A meal at Mill & Main. Photography courtesy of Mill & Main.

At Mill & Main in the Hudson Valley town of Kerhonkson, N.Y., Claudia Sidoti explains that many of the wine and food choices she makes are focused on the broadest sense of community. When picking food and wine, she works with her husband, Paul Weathered, and their son Christopher. Their shared cultures influence many of their decisions.

“Paul is West Indian, and I’m half Colombian and half Italian,” Sidoti explains. “Our goal is to source our meat, dairy and produce as much as humanly possible locally but to serve a globally inspired menu that honors all of our roots.”

“Our food is so eclectic, we offer a range of flavors from across the globe,” says Chris Weathered. “We have a Concord grape canned wine from Wild Arc in the Hudson Valley that is absolutely amazing, but we also have selections from Jerez, the Loire, the Willamette Valley. It’s not a huge list, maybe 30 to 35 bottles in total, with an emphasis on natural, low-intervention, sustainably produced wines that occasionally push the envelope.”

Their cocktail program, Sidati notes, is even more ambitious. 

“We really wanted to showcase our global roots there,” she says. “Our vibe is very much locally rooted, but [it’s] a reflection of the globe.” 

But a commitment to local drinks can be done, and in places you may not expect. Cabernet Grill, perched squarely in Texas Hill Country, transitioned from a global to a Texas-centric wine list after opening in 2001. 

“[Our chef] really began to see the potential of Texas wine, and he wanted to support the industry, so he transitioned to all Texas wine in 2006,” says Elizabeth Rodriguez, sommelier and wine director. “The difference between then and now in terms of what is available is incredible. We now offer close to 200 wines from 50 wineries. And the fact that we can offer 42 different grape varietals shows just how diverse Texas wine is and how much potential it has for food pairing.”

Staff members also visited wineries across Texas for in-depth tastings and education so they could understand what they’d be offering guests. 

“That commitment to education was really important because there was resistance in the beginning from guests,” says Rodriguez. “But once our staff could educate guests and recommend pairings that would really work, we saw sales of wine actually go way up. Now, people come in specifically for the wines.”

Rodriguez says they rotate flights—sometimes with a focus on one varietal or a vineyard,or a producer—frequently, so guests can try three wines with their meal. 

“Our food is classic Texas Hill Country, local sourced, so it’s really fun to pair,” she says. “Our lobster-topped chicken fried ribeye is really popular, and that and many of our other Texas classics pair well with hearty reds, so we sell a lot of Cabernet and Merlot, but [we] also try to introduce guests to some of our fantastic Tannat, Tempranillo and Aglianico.”

Next up: going all in on Texas spirits. 

“Right now, we have 18 Texas spirits and eight Texas beers,” says Rodriguez. “Our goal is to offer 100 percent Texas everything.”

Elizabeth Rodriguez, Cabernet Grill wine director. Photography courtesy of Cabernet Grill.

In New York, Charlie Marshall attributes the success of the wine, liquor and beer program to the growth and increased success of New York wineries, distilleries and breweries in the past decade. 

“It is amazing to see how much talent has come into New York in the past 10 years,” he says. “We’re going to get a local Amaro soon, which means we can make 100 percent  New York Negronis.” 

The thirst for a local libation to pair with a grass-fed steak or harvest salad sourced from nearby fields does appear to be increasing. Perhaps, in 20 years, a farm-to-table restaurant will, by definition, include a local drinks list as well.

The post Farm-to-Table Doesn’t Always Mean Farm-to-Glass appeared first on Modern Farmer.

According to a global review of agriculture from the United Nations, 80 percent of municipal wastewater discharged into water bodies is untreated, and 70 percent of that water comes from agriculture. Farms are dumping tons of agrochemicals, organic matter and drug residues into waterways, threatening aquatic and human health.

Thankfully, many farmers around the world are as alarmed as scientists are, and they are taking it upon themselves to launch strict sustainability initiatives to help rectify the situation.

Read on to learn more about two wildly different but equally compelling solutions from entrepreneurs on opposite ends of the country. 

CLEANER WATERS SPAWN SALMON
Tom Gamble—a third-generation farmer and proprietor of Gamble Family Vineyards—has a deep family history in eco-preservation in Napa Valley. He decided to take action in the 1990s when he saw how the deadlock between environmental groups and Napa County had put progress on hold.

In the early 2000s, he helped create two sustainability certification initiatives for Napa wineries and farmers—the Napa Green Initiative and  the Fish Friendly Farming certification—in the hope of minimizing soil erosion and reducing runoff in order to restore the health of creeks and the Napa River.

Napa County is comprised of 500,000 acres, 45,000+ acres of which are under vine; 38,000 of those vine acres are certified under one or more of the certification programs. About 140 wineries without vineyards are certified Napa Green, and another 160 wineries with vineyards are enrolled.

The renewed dedication to green farming has transformed life in and around the Napa River, Gamble says.

“Just in the last few years, salmon have started to return and spawn all the way to Calistoga, which is a 30-plus-mile journey from San Pablo Bay,” he says. “Numbers are still small, but the progress in the waterways is encouraging. I’m amazed at the resurgence of wildlife to date, and it means there is an improving invisible web of life as well.”

But what is perhaps even more encouraging, Gamble says, is the paradigm shift these collaborative, volunteer-based, non-governmental programs have inspired.

“Seeing farmers who have been given cause to be cynical by the political and regulatory battles of past decades become inspired by their participation in a public-private partnership that improves the environment is inspiring,” he says.

It’s easy to feel defeated in the face of increasingly stark reports on the state of our oceans, but Gamble believes that every individual can make a difference, starting in their own backyard.

GROWING FISH FROM WASTE
In Westfield, NY, a fish farm launched by a scientist and distiller was born from the notion that sitting around and waiting for the government to solve our most pressing environmental issues is an exercise in futility.

“I’ve had an overriding concern about climate change and the impact it’s having on our sources of water and food for decades,” says biophysicist Jere Northrop, the founder of TimberFish. “You can’t depend on the government to provide a solution in a timely manner, so I decided to find a way to create a technology that could grow fish from organic waste, and make it economically viable.”

Northrop created TimberFish in 2008 with the goal of applying his decades of research in the area of microbial biomass technology and waste treatment systems into tangible solutions. In other words, he hoped to turn organic waste, literally, into fish we can—and want to—eat.

In 2017, a brewery and distillery called Five & 20 Spirits and Brewing and TimberFish opened a fish production farm. Northrop explains the way it works: A bioreactor converts waste from the brewery and locally sourced organic wood chips into a microbial biomass that is then cycled through a worm farm, where solids are filtered out and the microbes are consumed by the worms. Soluble fish tank wastes are cleaned by wood chip filters and solid wastes are recycled back through the bioreactor. There is no waste. The only thing that emerges is fish.

Northrop says growing fish locally from feed that it produces from stillage, brewery waste and wash waters is about more than just removing wastewater that will end up in local streams and lakes. It’s about saving energy by shortening the long seafood supply chain, which shrinks the carbon footprint of fish.

About 35 percent of harvested fish and seafood are lost en route to your plate, according to the U.N. That loss could feed millions of people annually, and save the greenhouse gases expended to harvest and ship that fish, says Northrop.

Then there’s also the issue of the microplastics fish are consuming in the wild; while it is unclear how exactly it may be affecting human health, scientists are alarmed by the implications. Industrial fish farms, meanwhile, threaten human and environmental health. One study found 13 persistent organic pollutants in farmed salmon.

Thus far, bass, perch, catfish fingerlings, trout and shrimp have been introduced to the TimberFish operation. Initially, TimberFish had hoped to be producing 10,000 pounds of fish a year that it could sell for $4-$5 a pound, and while it hasn’t scaled up as quickly as it had hoped, TimberFish believes it’s on track to meet that goal, perhaps next year.

In the meantime, it is thrilled to have been able to recycle all of the waste and produce fish that, in initial testing, are actually lower in calories and higher in “good” fats than either their farm-raised and wild-caught counterparts.

The result of Gamble’s efforts is cleaner rivers with spawning salmon. TimberFish has created a circular economy with no waste; just delicious, healthy fish.

These completely different but equally viable and widely applicable approaches tackle the most pressing environmental problems of our time: clean water and healthy food.

The post Entrepreneurs on Opposite Coasts Make Fish-Friendly Booze appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But the data doesn’t tell the whole story. Though increasing, the number of young farmers who are growing food still isn’t keeping pace with the number of farmers who are retiring. The average age of farmers increased from 56.3 in 2012 to 57.5 in 2017, and the number of primary producers (those who farm full-time) over the age of 65 outnumbers the number of farmers under the age of 35 by roughly 6.41 to 1.

Furthermore, longtime observers of the ag scene always ask one question: In addition to concern over the age of the producer behind the tractor, shouldn’t we be looking at what kind of American farm is thriving?

According to the census, we lost 70,000 midsize farms between 2012 and 2017. Meanwhile, the number of larger farms (comprising 2,000 acres or more) has increased. And the farming version of the one percent class just keeps getting richer: The top four percent of large farms that make over $1 million a year in sales accounted for more than 65 percent of all farm sales in 2017.

In a nutshell, farms are continuing to get bigger, more corporate and older. Yet, there are a few institutions that are successfully managing to go against the big ag grain. Their entire business models are based around lifting up financially disenfranchised farming entrepreneurs who are focused on responsible land management and sustainability initiatives.

This is a case study of one such organization, Dirt Capital Partners, and the farmers it funds.

FUNDING PROGRESS
“Young farmers need options, but classic lending institutions won’t invest in people unless they have great credit, collateral and off-farm income,” says Lee Hennessy, the 38-year-old founder of Moxie Ridge Farm & Creamery who purchased the 46-acre farm in Argyle, New York, from a retiring farm couple. “When I spoke with Dirt Capital, I decided that they were my best chance at making this farmstead goat creamery a reality.”

In other words, no one will lend you money to buy chickens if you don’t have a nest egg. Dirt Capital Partners is one of a small but growing group of for-profit investors who are willing to let farmers count their chickens before they hatch and invest in a savvy farmer’s potential. As of press time, Dirt Capital has invested about $15 million in 22 projects spanning 3,800 acres, all in the Northeastern United States.

Thanks, in large part, to Dirt Capital’s funding, Moxie Ridge has just completed its third season in business and hired its first staffers at a fair living wage. The farm sells its cheeses, whey-fed pork, milk-finished chickens and free-range eggs at Union Square Greenmarket in New York City, Saratoga Farmers’ Market in Saratoga Springs and Troy Waterfront Farmers’ Market in Troy.

“We try to fill gaps in the conventional agricultural credit and lending system,” says Jacob Israelow, founder and managing director of Dirt Capital. Unlike traditional lenders, who care less about a farmer’s choice of pesticide and more about the size of their collateral, they will only work with farmers who are committed to sustainable ecological land management (they don’t have to be certified organic, but they have to be practicing organic methods). They also need a marketable game plan with high-value foods that consumers are willing to pay for.

“We’re focused on supporting farm businesses that are economically viable and ecologically beneficial,” says Israelow, describing the farmers in Dirt Capital’s portfolio. “In our region, these are primarily organic dairy and diversified direct-market farms.”

Take the Dharma Lea dairy farm in Cobleskill, New York, for example. With the help of Dirt Capital, it acquired a 425-acre property from a retiring dairy farmer to expand its 100 percent grass-fed, organic dairy business. Paul and Phyllis Van Amburgh own and manage the farm with their five children. They use holistic grazing and whole farm planning that takes into consideration the health of the entire herd, as well as the diverse ecosystem of soils, grasses, flowers, plants, insects, birds and small mammals that the thriving organic farm hosts within its bounds.

“I met Jacob for the first time at a regenerative farming conference, and we hit it off right away,” says 56-year-old Paul Van Amburgh. “I told him that Phyllis and I wanted to quit our jobs and farm full-time by buying additional land. We had an ambitious plan of leveraging our 50-cow operation and creating a full-scale regenerative farm. But we couldn’t get a bank or Farm Service Agency to sign on because they have strict financial caps, and it would cost over a million dollars.”

The farmers at Dharma Lea, founded in 2006, knew they had a viable business. In 2011, they began selling their grass-fed, organic dairy to Maple Hill Creamery, which makes 100 percent grass-fed yogurt, milk and cheese from a growing milkshed of small-scale dairy farmers in New York. Farmers selling 100 percent grass-fed, organic milk receive more than double what commodity dairy farms receive for their milk, and the animals spend all of their time outside in the pasture rather than confined in barns. The demand for 100 percent grass-fed, organic dairy products continues to surge among consumers.

With its strong track record, management skills and business model, Dirt Capital led a joint financing arrangement with the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) to provide the bulk of the loan needed to buy the farm and construct new buildings while still enabling the Van Amburghs to take advantage of the FSA’s flexible terms and lower interest rate (up to the maximum loan limits allowed).

“I loved Jacob’s approach to financing,” says 48-year-old Phyllis Van Amburgh. “He didn’t just look at our business numbers; he also took into account the human factor, what we had accomplished so far, our business plan for the future and what he came to see as a viable path to success.”

Israelow founded Dirt Capital in 2013. He graduated with an MBA from Columbia Business School and went on to serve as vice-president at Goldman Sachs in Asia for five years. Instead of doing what most people in that position would do (continue climbing the ladder until he had enough money to retire and swivel to philanthropy), he returned to his roots.

He grew up in a suburb of New York City as the grandson of first-generation immigrants who started food businesses. He was raised with an appreciation for good food and good food culture. And that, Israelow believes, begins on well-managed farms that are as invested in their communities as they are in making money.

After a brief but highly successful career in finance, he and his wife decided to leave the hustle behind and embrace a different lifestyle. He saw that a new generation of farmers in the region were growing healthy food in ways that regenerate soil health and rural economies and that some could make a living at it but often lacked long-term secure access to land. He also realized that he had a unique opportunity to use his business and real estate background to empower a new generation of smart, motivated farmers who were disenfranchised by a system created to help subsidize and fund already large, successful farming operations.

Israelow moved to New York’s Hudson Valley with his wife and three kids, and his initial partnerships were with farmers in his neck of the woods. “I used my background in business to channel private investments in support of farmland access, conservation and long-term land security for sustainable farmers who were unable to secure the financing they needed to take their businesses to the next level,” he says. He recruited like-minded private, individual investors who were also passionate about maintaining America’s traditional small-farm, community-centric model of agriculture.

After a few years of running the show solo and slowly expanding his footprint to encompass more of New England and New Jersey, Israelow brought in Benneth Phelps as director of farmer services. She helps assess potential partnerships with businesses and works one-on-one with farmers in consultations before, during and after major investments, purchases or farm rehab.

FARMING LIKE AN ENTREPRENEUR
About 25 individuals help provide funding for Dirt Capital, which, unlike many alternative, agriculturally focused lending organizations, is set up as a for-profit venture. This notion is embraced by 36-year-old Brandon Bless and 45-year-old Corie Pierce of Vermont’s Bread & Butter Farm, which recently partnered with Dirt Capital on a large and complicated farmland conservation investment project. “We knew it would be a challenge to come up with $3 million to buy a retiring farm family’s land when developers had cash in hand to offer the Auclair family,” says Pierce. But, because the Auclair family, whose family had been farming the land in South Burlington, Vermont, for multiple generations, wanted to pass along the open space, waterways, farmland and pastures—with public trails and access—to other farmers who would honor their legacy, they gave them a little time.

“Because Dirt Capital is a for-profit company, they are willing to take more risks than other lending institutions if Jacob and Benneth believe the farmers’ business plan merits that risk,” says Bless. “The FSA wouldn’t even look at our proposal because it was so complex, but once Jacob and Benneth created a plan that would involve a mosaic of institutions working together and providing loans, they began to see the potential.”

Ultimately, Dirt Capital provided more than half of the $3 million acquisition price, with the City of South Burlington, Vermont Land Trust and South Burlington Land Trust providing the balance. Bread & Butter Farm works to build soils, encourage biodiversity and keep waters safe while growing high-quality, nutrient-dense, grass-fed beef and pork, organic vegetables and value-added seasonal products. The farm sells food from its farm store through a community-supported agriculture (CSA) plan and throws a weekly Burger Night party in summer for locals and visitors.

“We will carry a mortgage on this farm for 21 years, but we didn’t get into farming to make money,” says Pierce. “We are passionate about building community through food and music and engaging people of all ages and backgrounds on the farm and the land, which we all share.”

Instead of focusing on foodies who want their own show on the Food Network or hope to land a line of organic toaster pastries in Target, Israelow sought out soil geeks who want to provide people in their own community with delicious, responsibly grown food. “A growing segment of consumers is willing to pay a premium for responsibly produced food, but it shouldn’t have to be this way,” says Israelow. “Everyone should have access to healthy, fresh food. We need policy makers to direct incentives and subsidies to farmers who are doing this hard work. People understand that better-grown food is healthier for them and their families. Our whole goal is to give smart, responsible farmers a path to success.”

Israelow is certainly right about interest in organic food being on an upswing. The Organic Trade Association found that 82.3 percent of Americans have organic food in their fridges and pantries, up 3.4 percent from the previous year’s study. Organic food sales now total nearly $40 billion a year, making up about five percent of our total food sales. Now much of that probably lines the pockets of subsidized mega-farm organic producers without any of the “true” commitments to what most consumers would consider to be sustainable farming practices. But thanks to Dirt Capital, there are 22 more truly sustainable, modern farmers out there, growing healthy and delicious food for you and the planet.

The post The Dirt on Dirt Capital appeared first on Modern Farmer.