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

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

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

The report

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

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

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

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

Greenwashing

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

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

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

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

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

Anaerobic digesters. (Photo from Shutterstock)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Digesters don’t erase factory farm concerns

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

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

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

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

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

Manure storage vessels. (Photo from Shutterstock)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dairy cows being milked. (Photo from Shutterstock)

A more sustainable future for dairy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photography by Adrian Carper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photography by Adrian Carper.

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

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

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

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

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

Conservationist Eric Steen aims to change that. His Earth to Beer project is bringing together over 35 breweries from across the US to make a commitment to brewing a mindfully sourced and packaged beer in collaboration with local environmental nonprofits this Earth Day, “to pack as much sustainability as possible into each can.”

As the impacts of climate change intensify worldwide, there is a greater awareness that we need to make changes in our daily lives to help combat its effects. With this project, Steen is enabling breweries and drinkers to do this in an open-ended and collaborative fashion. “What I think is truly unique about Earth to Beer is that we don’t prescribe a specific way to approach the environmental question,” Steen explains. “We aren’t telling brewers to buy organic only, we’re saying that organic is one of many great options that also include local, regenerative agriculture, other certifications like Salmon-Safe, non-certified but responsibly grown, and more. This decentralized approach allows breweries to get creative in ways that make sense for them, their budgets, and their communities.” 

Ghostfish Brewing of Seattle is putting out an oyster stout and supporting the Puget Sound Restoration Fund as part of the Earth to Beer project. (Photo courtesy Ghostfish Brewing)

Steen aims to make the project as accessible as possible for breweries and drinkers, offering negotiated discounts with suppliers, information about ethical sourcing, and marketing and branding resources and custom artwork to help breweries attract interest from customers and retailers. Brewers can make any style of beer and use whichever sustainable resources they feel will suit their needs best. Recipes released already include Aslan Brewing’s classic Amber Ale, which uses all Salmon-Safe certified hops, and GearHouse Brewing’s Imperial Honey Wheat Ale brewed with Pennsylvania honey and aged in locally sourced whiskey barrels.

Earth to Beer features participants from Alaska to Texas to Hawaii, all of whom have committed to working with sustainable suppliers and partnering with a local environmental nonprofit. “We’ve asked breweries to reverse the role of what normally happens with a nonprofit — usually the nonprofit approaches the brewery and there’s a pretty hands-off way of giving donated beer for a cause. In Earth to Beer, breweries have to find a nonprofit they want to work with, do the outreach and invite them in” says Steen.

Oddwood Brewing in Austin TX has chosen to partner with the Colorado River Alliance for the project. “With good, clean water being absolutely crucial to the creation of good beer we, as a small community-oriented brewery, wanted to team up with those that are fighting to protect our water and communities,” says Oddwood’s events and operations manager Charlie Mikulich. Oddwood is also sourcing its malt from TexMalt, a locally based supplier that works with nearby farms to reduce the carbon footprint of malt supply. It is also sourcing from Yakima Chief Hops, a grower-owned family farm collective that uses green energy to power its facilities, a water reclamation program to keep local habitats safe, and created the Green Chief Program (a sustainability management program that promotes and develops guidelines for all their farms). 

Breweries are required to pay a small fee to join Earth to Beer and make a contribution to the nonprofit of their choice, depending on brewery size, ranging from $500-$1,000 minimum. They are also expected to begin open-ended collaborations, such as providing beer for events and offering free meeting spaces. For startups and minority-owned breweries, sponsor Arryved, which specializes in point-of-sale technology, has provided a stipend so cost doesn’t prohibit participation. “Building a better world through beer requires not only more sustainable ingredients and processes, but also more opportunities for people of color to participate and contribute to the creativity and problem solving we will need to get there,” says Aaron Gore, Director of Community and Partnerships at Arryved.

MadTree Brewing in Cincinnati, Ohio organizes staff volunteer days and donates one percent of all sales to local nonprofits. (Photo courtesy MadTree Brewing)

Another sponsor and collaborator is Canworks, the first US company to print directly onto aluminum cans, eliminating plastic waste and making them recyclable. “There is a challenge in consumer awareness. Most consumers don’t realize that many of the cans they recycle are covered in shrink sleeves and those cans are going straight to a landfill because of that,” says Canworks head of marketing Daniel Rigdon. That’s where Earth to Beer comes in. “Educating consumers so they can make informed decisions is the fastest way to effect change,” Rigdon explains.

Steen aims to spearhead wider industry change by creating a multi-layered, inclusive, educational and open-ended initiative. “Formalizing a campaign around Earth Day and institutionalizing it will go a long way to get breweries who aren’t thinking about their impact to start to care,” he says. This is also the goal for Tulsa OK’s Heirloom Rustic Ales, which is partnering with the Conservation Coalition of Oklahoma. “Our hope for this project is that other brewers (and growers) will see that consumers appreciate, and even gravitate towards, agriculturally holistic products,” says co-owner and brewer Jake Miller. 

For Steen, the key goal is to raise awareness about brewing and drinking intentionally. “If you’re not already intentional in the way that you source your ingredients, consider making one beer a year where you change things up. And each time you make this beer, get a little more intentional about it,” he says. His advice to consumers? “Ask breweries what they’re doing to support producers and suppliers who are environmental stewards, and go out of your way to support breweries that are intentional.”

Earth to Beer releases will be available around the country this April. Find the full list of participating breweries here.

The post Drinking, and Thinking About, More Sustainable Beer appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The researcher and passionate urban gardener in me couldn’t resist digging in deeper and working to illuminate a fuller “truth” around this recent result. Spoiler alert: Avoid carbon tunnel vision, as focusing on a single emissions metric misses the many other benefits that can get us out of the crisis we’re in. 

Back up a step: What is urban agriculture? Urban ag is any kind of food production space within a city, inclusive of commercial farms that grow and sell directly to consumers, non-profit farms that serve a broader mission, community gardens, school gardens and even vacant lots turned into thriving personal gardens or homesteads. 

Better yet, why do some researchers, farmers and activists prefer the term “urban agroecology?” From 2017 to 2019, my research team helped to define and elevate “urban agroecology” in the US as a better way of acknowledging the multifunctional benefits of urban green spaces. These farms and gardens are not “just” growing food, they are also building community, performing environmental services (think stormwater mitigation and reducing urban heat island effect), providing habitat for biodiversity and educating urban residents. It’s often one of the only ways kids and adults alike can interact with nature, see where their food comes from and witness the magic of a seed sprouting. Urban growing spaces are also often led by women and BIPOC farmers (more than 60 percent in my investigation of the East Bay in California’s Bay Area), serving as important grounds for empowerment, culturally relevant food production and healing of racialized patterns of agricultural work. 

Oxford Tract research farm at UC Berkeley. Photo submitted by Laney Siegner.

So, I had alarm bells going off when reading about this new study. The research from the University of Michigan-led study seems to show that fruit and vegetables grown in urban ag have a carbon footprint six times larger than that of “conventionally grown” food (meaning, on rural farmland). 

The choice to compare greenhouse gas intensity of soil-based urban agriculture systems with conventional farming systems brings up an inherently unfair comparison. When looking at conventional, large-scale farming systems, which are largely monocultures designed to maximize yield per acre via application of fossil-fuel based fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals, we already have a large body of evidence that these are carbon-intensive production systems with a host of other detrimental environmental impacts (land, air and water pollution, soil degradation and erosion, habitat and biodiversity loss across billions of acres of “conventional farmland” globally). 

However, when you divide a large number (i.e., carbon emissions) by another large number (yield per acre), you get a small number of carbon emissions associated with each serving of lettuce, for example. When looking at urban community and school farms and gardens, we often see highly diversified plots that are more sparsely planted, with some weedy edges. They’re not exactly “yield-maximizing” practices on display. So, when you divide a relatively small number of carbon emissions, which the researchers in the study attributed to things such as garden infrastructure (raised beds, paved paths, tool sheds and others)—so, indirect emissions—and divide it by another very small number (yield per acre), you end up with a relatively larger number than your conventional allegory “lettuce serving.” The math here doesn’t point the finger towards the system that really needs changing in carbon and climate terms. 

This study disregards the far more pressing issue of the sheer quantity of emissions that come from conventional farming. Additionally, the conversations only circled back towards the end to include or acknowledge the many climate “benefits” of having spaces where city dwellers can connect with their food system and with nature in the city. These less quantifiable benefits are primary, not secondary; they are essential to bring into collective societal focus, rather than obscure behind a conclusion that sets up a feeling of confusion or uncertainty about whether urban ag is or is not a “climate solution.” Urban farms, especially when well managed and resourced with consistent staffing and city support, are critical pieces of the climate solutions puzzle. 

It brings me back to this unsettled feeling that the study is asking the wrong research question, if the conclusions and headlines point us towards some course of action around “fixing” urban farms so they can have a lower carbon footprint, while saying nothing about the carbon-intensive conventional farming system that urgently needs to change to address the overlapping climate and public health crisis. To quote one of the leaders of my urban ag research project, Dr. Timothy Bowles, a professor of Agroecology at U.C. Berkeley: 

“This is an issue with metrics… in this case, using efficiency as the metric (i.e., amount of food produced per unit of GHG emission). Efficiency metrics can be problematic for a number of reasons, and a number of studies have demonstrated more ‘efficient’ food production from conventional systems compared to various alternatives from a strictly GHG standpoint, largely due to higher yields, even if total emissions are high. In general, we need multifunctional perspectives for a more holistic systems comparison.” 

To be sure, we need conventional farming systems right now that create efficiency and economies of scale to grow and distribute large volumes of food to feed a growing population. There is no switching to diversified farming and regenerative agriculture overnight, just like there is no transition to purely solar and wind power for our electricity system without proper planning for this change. I’m not saying we can feed the entire city from the products of urban farms (although there have been researchers before me who modeled that this is theoretically possible, within a 50-mile radius, of a US midwestern city). What we need is for the conventional food system to change dramatically: to reduce reliance on fossil-fuel-based inputs, be more adaptive to climate extremes, adopt climate-friendly practices such as cover cropping and compost application, and in doing all this become a better source of healthy food. 

I’m also all for improving urban farms, increasing recycling of materials and waste streams in cities and resourcing them to be viable sites of food production, as the study authors point out as action items. I just find the impetus for doing so to be limited if we’re primarily talking about reducing the carbon footprint of these sites. Urban farms are capable of teaching the principles of photosynthesis, soil health and carbon sequestration even if they are not sequestering carbon in large quantities. And this knowledge is powerful. 

Where do we go from here as researchers, as eaters and producers of food? The food system of today is in crisis. It has prioritized cost and yield over all else. The result? It doesn’t work for farmers, it does not produce nutritious, healthy food for people and it is a disaster environmentally. However, the future of food can be diversified, abundant and rooted in soil health practices, fostering social equity and farmer well-being. I see that shift happening already on farms both urban and rural, big and small. It takes education, both farmer to farmer and farmer to consumer, as well as policy change to support the shifts already in motion. By reconnecting with food, with ecology, with living soil, we connect to climate solutions and help to reverse the damages of climate change.

Laney Siegner is founder and Co-director of Climate Farm School, with a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley Energy and Resources Group. 

The post Opinion: To Make a Real Impact on Climate Change, We Must Move Beyond the Carbon Footprint appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Ben Stanger has composted his whole life, starting with a backyard bin when he was a child. But when he wanted to expand his composting efforts and start a business, he had a hard time finding a municipality that would let him. 

Eventually, he was able to work with officials in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, to update their bylaws so Stanger could start composting. Now, two years later, his business Green Box has grown by 28 times, and he’s looking to see how much further he can go. 

Stanger spoke with Modern Farmer about what it takes to start composting at this scale and how to advocate to rework restrictive legislation. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Photography submitted by Green Box.

Modern Farmer: First things first: Ben, how did this interest in composting start for you?

Ben Stanger: Growing up, my family was always very involved in growing food, gardening, canning stuff, whatever. As part of that, we composted as a way of doing natural waste diversion and creating quality soil to go back into the garden. It was something I was very used to and, as a young child, always took for granted. I realized, as I was older, “Oh, everybody doesn’t do this. Why don’t they all do this?” 

I moved to Chicago after college and, in 2017, I was working at a sustainable seafood company at a farmers market. And I saw a compost collection van driving around the neighborhood. And I just realized, “oh, wow, people are doing this, this is a real thing.” I contacted them, and I started working for them. I worked there for about two years. And in those two years, during the beginning of the pandemic, we grew really quickly. And I realized, “OK, this is a real way to kind of solve this issue.”

MF: So, that’s when you decided to iterate on the Chicago business, but in your hometown of Madison, Wisconsin?

BS: Yeah. In Chicago, [the business] didn’t actually compost ourselves. We were collecting organic waste, and then somebody else collected it from us. And that worked for the situation, but I kind of felt like it didn’t give us enough oversight over what we were doing. 

After moving back to Madison, I realized there wasn’t really any infrastructure to compost food scraps, even if I wanted to outsource it and just be a collector, like in Chicago. 

MF: On the surface, it seems like a compost program would be easy to implement if a city already has a trash or recycling pick-up. When you were searching for a place to start your business, what were the issues you came up against?

BS: The big thing is a lack of infrastructure; there’s nowhere to compost that amount of food waste. Food waste is hard to compost compared to other organic waste, like yard waste. It’s really nitrogen rich, it’s really putrescible. It’s really wet and often contaminated. And so you have to be able to handle all those things. And so it kind of requires a different approach than yard waste composting, which is pretty easy to manage. And so just making the investments, there are things that communities haven’t done. 

MF: In terms of infrastructure, many cities have landfills. What do you need for a large-scale composting program?

BS: Well, there’s no one right way to do this, everything is kind of iterative.

We opted for a rotating drum composter. Our goal was to just get our foot in the door in whatever municipality we ended up working in. And to do that, we wanted to make sure our process was as clean and efficient as possible so that we would allay any fears about possible rodents or pests or bad smells. So, we spent a lot of money to make sure that we didn’t run into any perception issues. Our main goal is to kind of make the perception of composting seem cool and achievable. 

Photography submitted by Green Box.

MF: In a place like Wisconsin, roughly a third of household waste is food waste. With that much organic waste, compost seems like an issue many jurisdictions would want to tackle. How many places did you go to before you found a home for Green Box?

BS: I was in my parents’ basement for about six months, just shopping around municipalities. Pretty much every place I emailed either didn’t have a commercial composting zoning classification, or if they did, they expressly prohibited food scrap composting. And pretty much every place, all their zoning codes were written in the ‘80s, when they were more concerned about pests for local landowners and homeowners. That was a big legislative hurdle. 

The other hurdle was real estate. The market is really hot right now, there are a lot of people moving here. And a lot of it is dedicated towards either residential or multi-use development, so it’s hard to find space for this sort of operation.

Finally, just being a new business owner in a business that’s not well established, it’s hard convincing people that what you are doing is worthwhile, if people hadn’t even heard of composting.

[RELATED: Map: Who Composts?]

MF: So, you had to contend with a bunch of bylaws written 40 or more years ago. 

BS: Yeah. And we did find a home in Sun Prairie. That’s a combination of timing, finding a good location and warehouse and the city being willing to work with us. What ended up happening was there was a zoning code to allow for commercial composting operations. Sun Prairie was very helpful and willing to work with us to update one of the classifications to compost food scraps.

MF: So, now, your coverage area extends outside of Sun Prairie, and you actually have customers throughout Madison as well. 

BS: We started off smaller and tried to be dense. We started just about two years ago, on Valentine’s Day, 2022. 

At first, we had 25 members that were composting 200 pounds a week. And because of that we had to be fairly tight, just to make sure that we weren’t losing money on pickups. But now that we have about 700 residential members, composting about seven tons a week, we can afford to go a little bit further afield. In fact, we’re planning a few expansions to even further surrounding smaller municipalities in this coming year. 

Photography submitted by Green Box.

MF: Is composting easier with more people, with larger pickups? Can you do things that backyard composters can’t? 

BS: So, in order to kill pathogens like E. coli and salmonella in compost, you need to achieve a temperature of 131 degrees [Fahrenheit] for a sustained 72 hours. That’s the baseline. Most backyard composting piles don’t hit that, so you don’t want to compost meat, bones or dairy in those smaller compost piles because of the risk of bacteria spreading. 

But for us, we can achieve those temperatures on an industrial scale, no problem. And because we are rotating and composting in a vessel indoors, we have no issues with pests. 

We need to make this easy for the average consumer to adopt. We’re happy to take diehard conservationists and environmentalists, that’s great. But we figured they were probably already composting. We need to try and cater to people who don’t have the time or the interest or just the knowledge. So, [we’re] trying to get as broad a base as possible.

[RELATED: Composting Makes Sense. Why Don’t More Cities Do It?]

MF: That’s an interesting goal, to go after the customers who might not be your immediate target audience. I know that, for many folks, efforts like composting can seem a little futile in the face of the massive changes that need to happen to help our planet. 

BS: Definitely. I’ll say it probably doesn’t matter that much if one individual composts. But if that one individual composting gets 10 more people to compost, eventually those 10 get 10 more, and then we get to the point where now there’s buy-in and capital investment in the infrastructure, so we can start working with whole municipalities…That’s a real impact. Part of this is changing perceptions, changing goals, changing understandings about how waste works. That’s the really powerful part.

Photography submitted by Green Box.

For more on what is takes for cities to start a compost program, check out our feature on municipal compost programs here. 

Ready to compost where you live? Here are some expert tips to get started. 

• Look for community compost groups. Many organizations, including community gardens or environmental clubs, hold seminars or introductory panels on how to start composting. Get up to speed on what’s offered in your area; in addition to learning the composting basics, you might be able to join a network that’s already established. You can also search for a local composter here, or use this EPA map to find opportunities to divert excess food near you. 

• Check in with your city’s waste management team. Does your city offer composting? If they do, is it easily accessible? Most city’s waste management departments are easily found on the city website. From there, they should lay out exactly what you can and can’t compost, your individual pickup times, or the drop-off locations nearest you. 

• Make your voice heard. If your city does not offer a compost program, let the waste management department know you want one! One of the biggest hurdles to starting a pilot program is ensuring that there are enough residents interested in composting in the first place. Make it clear that you want to participate in a program, which makes it much easier for city officials to greenlight one. There are also resources to help municipalities as they get started, including this template from the US Composting Council which helps cities look at land use ordinances and classifications. 
• Look at the zoning bylaws. As Ben found out, some municipal bylaws were written decades ago, and they may not be up to date with the best waste management strategies for cities. But when city officials see that there is interest from the public, they have more reason to look at updating those bylaws, or looking at new ways of waste diversion.

***

The post He Wanted to Start Up a Composting Operation. Outdated Zoning Laws Stood in the Way. appeared first on Modern Farmer.

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

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

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

Hey plastic, don’t touch my cheese

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

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

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

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

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

Out of sight, out of mind 

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

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

Photo: Shutterstock

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

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

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

Logan Harvey, senior general manager of Recology Sonoma Marin, gestures toward bales of plastic at a new recycling facility in Santa Rosa, CA. (Photo: Rose Garrett/Modern Farmer)

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

Less is more

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

Many people are eager to do their part, and individual actions, taken as a whole, can make a big difference. At the same time, it’s important to remember that individual responsibility alone cannot solve the plastic crisis. Government regulation that holds manufacturers and polluters responsible is key to addressing the issue. 

So, what can you do? 

Recycle right

Recycling won’t stop the tide of new plastic being produced, but it can make a dent in how much virgin plastic goes straight into the landfill. Make sure you’re up to speed on which items are recyclable in your area, and keep in mind that your waste doesn’t disappear into thin air the moment it goes into the bin. 

“Human hands touch everything,” says Logan Harvey, senior general manager of Recology Sonoma Marin, which recently debuted a new recycling facility in Santa Rosa, CA. Despite employing a plethora of the newest technology to sort mixed recycling, human sorters manually review all the materials, sometimes dealing with non-recyclable items that range from head-scratching (an elliptical machine) to disgusting (used diapers) to downright dangerous (hypodermic needles). Recycling guidelines aren’t merely abstract recommendations; rinse and dry items and pay attention to your municipal guidelines.

Reduce, reuse and refill

You’ve heard it before, now hear it again: Reducing consumption of plastic and learning to reuse items before or instead of throwing them away are among the most important things you can do at the individual level. 

“It’s really the reuse, refill models that are most effective,” says Erica Cirino, communications manager for the advocacy group Plastic Pollution Coalition and author of Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis. “There are more and more refill shops, which are basically markets where you can get food and other home products, from washing machine powder to dish soap and toothpaste, without all the plastic packaging, by being able to fill up your own containers and bring them home.”

Reuse and refill map created by Plastic Free Future.

Short of that, Cirino advises looking for places where you can buy food that’s simply unwrapped, such as farmers markets and grocery stores that carry products loose or wrapped in paper. “Look for better options until more of these truly zero-waste shops can emerge,” she says. 

Get inspired 

Social media zero-waste influencers can perpetuate unrealistic standards for how little waste normal people with busy lives can realistically achieve. However, there are hundreds of clever ideas online to minimize waste or give items new life through repairing, crafting, decorating, gardening and reorganizing. To find ideas, search for keywords like “zero waste” and “plastic free” on your social media platform of choice to find accounts dedicated to creative ways to reduce and reuse. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Emma // Zero Waste Living for all (@thesimpleenvironmentalist)

Join forces

As awareness of the plastic issue has grown, so have the ranks of nonprofit organizations dedicated to addressing the problem through education and action. Some, such as  the Surfrider Foundation, The 5 Gyres Institute and Plastic Oceans, are dedicated to ocean plastics; others, such as Break Free From Plastic and the Plastic Pollution Coalition, envision a global movement to stop plastic pollution. These types of organizations often have the most up-to-date information about campaigns and opportunities to act; they’ll also gladly accept monetary donations to support their work.

There may also be local groups and initiatives to get to know in your community, which can be the most immediate and actionable way to get involved. “Being active in your local policy-making efforts and being aware of what’s happening in your own community is the most important place to start,” says Cirino.

Support legislation

Local and state-level laws such as plastic straw and plastic bag bans have proliferated over the last decade. Such bans are largely effective, with some exceptions, but they are a piecemeal solution to a much larger problem. 

In Canada, a national ban on single-use plastics, instituted in 2021, was recently overturned, granting a win to plastics manufacturers. The federal government has since appealed the decision, and the ban remains in place while the appeal works its way through the courts this year. 

Although previous iterations haven’t had success, US lawmakers recently introduced sweeping legislation that would address the issue at the federal level. The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act of 2023 “is largely considered to be the most comprehensive attempt to address plastic pollution in US history,” says Cirino. “It’s not perfect, but it would better protect communities that are already harmed by plastic pollution, hopefully address recycling issues and also shift the burden of plastic pollution off of municipalities and taxpayers onto the actual producers of plastic pollution.”

To support the legislation, you can contact your congressperson and let them know what you think about the issue. You can also submit a form letter here.  

Educate yourself and others 

The issue of plastic waste can feel scary, complicated and overwhelming. There’s no simple solution, and no single person can solve it alone. Educating yourself, and sharing what you know with your friends and family is a great first step to raising awareness. 

There exist many books and documentaries on the issue of plastic waste. One of our staff picks is Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future (2023). Written by journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis, the book tours readers through the history of waste and recycling and explores where our waste—from plastic and paper to food waste, sewage, nuclear waste and more—really ends up and what it means for our future. 

***

We want to know: What products, tactics and strategies are you using to cut down on your plastic waste? What resources are most helpful? Tell us in the comments—we’d like to publish a story with reader recommendations!

The post What You Can Do About The Overwhelming Problem of Plastic Packaging appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Chances are, yes, you could find strawberries at the store for sale. They’d be about the size of a golf ball, probably bright red and cost a lot of money. It’s likely not surprising that the strawberries your grandparents and great-grandparents were eating just a few generations ago were quite different. They were smaller, probably closer to the size of a quarter, a deeper red hue and they most likely weren’t around at the tail end of winter. 

Certainly, the change in availability is in part due to ease of imports and prevalence of greenhouses today. And some of the other changes are due to breeding and genetic engineering that creates berries that are hardier and more robust for that very shipping. 

But some of the changes, especially the ones we can’t readily see, are due to climate change. 

When it comes to how climate change is impacting our food, there are the short-, medium- and long-term impacts. In the short term, food security is a huge concern whenever an extreme weather event happens in an area. If there’s a fire or drought, crops can die off and yields go down. Floods or storms, along with rising temperatures, can lead to the perfect conditions for bacteria and fungi to thrive. 

In the medium term, though, things get more intense. Since the majority of plants evolved at a time when there was much more carbon dioxide in the air, they’re primed to hoard carbon from the air when it’s available. Greenhouse gases in our atmosphere mean there’s an excess of carbon dioxide now, which stimulates photosynthesis and growth in those plants while also changing their chemistry. While those plants are taking in more carbon dioxide, they’re still taking in the regular amounts of all the other nutrients they’re getting from the air and soil, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium and the rest. All of those other elements are staying the same, leaving us with a plant that has more carbon than before and an imbalance in its nutrition, impacting how our immune systems function.

And that leads to the long-term effect: what the plant leaves behind in the soil for the next harvest. As these new, nutritionally imbalanced plants decompose back into the soil, the composition of the soil itself changes. This is a long process, as it takes hundreds of years to make soil, but it’s already underway. The very earth in which we grow our food is less equipped for the job than it was last century. “It’s not just humans that are going to be affected, all life is going to be affected,” says Lewis Ziska, an associate professor in the environmental health sciences department at Columbia University.

There are other factors that can influence the dilution of a plant’s nutrients. Declines in nutrients can come from using certain fertilizers or through selective breeding where the goal is high yield. Importantly, nutrient declines are also difficult to measure. There are arguments that it’s not a side-by-side comparison to measure plants today against plants from the past, because the very measuring tools we use vary widely in terms of their sophistication and accuracy. But Ziska says there is research that shows that an increase in carbon dioxide will reduce protein and other macronutrient levels in plants, regardless of the level at which it started. 

“We [looked at wheat] and went back 150 years. We looked at the nitrogen, which is a proxy for protein, and saw that it’s been declining in a steady state,” says Ziska. “And the question, at least for bees and other pollinators, is, at what point does it stop?”

As Ziska notes, plants are far more than just a source of food. They’re a source of medicine and narcotics, all sorts of things that interact with human’s well-being, from alcohol to opium. And all of those things will be impacted by a rise in carbon dioxide levels. Take the birth control pill, which was derived from diosgenin, which is in yams. As the macronutrients in our yams change, so, too, could the medicine we make from them. And it’s not hitting all parts of the world equally. 

“In Bangladesh, where rice makes up 70 percent of your daily calories, what happens if rice changes?” asks Ziska. As rising carbon dioxide levels lower the nutritional profile of rice, “it’s going to have a much greater effect on a country that relies primarily on rice.” (You can read more about the future of rice in our recent feature here).

If climate-induced nutrient changes hit countries such as Bangladesh and Laos the hardest, countries such as the US, which gets more of its calories from corn rather than rice, may be spared the worst of it. Corn, Ziska says, has a different photosynthetic metabolism than other cereals, which means it can withstand higher levels of carbon much better than rice, wheat, barley, lettuce or potatoes. 

Along with corn, legumes are in a good position as well. “These are plants that have a very important symbiotic relationship with bacteria, where the bacteria will actually fix additional nitrogen. And when you give them more carbon dioxide, those carbs go to feed the bacteria, which, in turn, increase the amount of nitrogen that sticks,” explains Ziska. Researchers could look at gene editing or gene splicing to bring in elements from corn and legumes into other plants. They might find those helpful bacteria could also work well with another set of crops or there could be other lessons to learn from these plants that we can’t see yet. But as our atmosphere gets more carbon-rich, all is not lost. 

 “If there’s a silver lining in this, [corn and legumes] may be the answer to future food security—or at least future nutritional security.”

***

To learn more about how you can link your diet to climate action, check out this article from the United Nations. You can also look to incorporate more legumes into your diet, or ask your representative to make nutrition science a priority.

The post Your Food is Less Nutritious Than It Used to Be appeared first on Modern Farmer.

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

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

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

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

Baling hay using plastic sheeting. (Photo courtesy of Cleanfarms)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hay bales wrapped in plastic. (Photo courtesy of Cleanfarms)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Volunteers plant fruit trees at a food forest in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Orchard Project

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saplings soak up the Tucson sun before getting planted around the city. City of Tucson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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