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.

The number of farms themselves has also declined from 2017 to 2022, down roughly 142,000 to 1.9 million farms. The last time the country saw numbers this small was 1850. However, the size of the average farm has increased, up five percent. 

Farmland now makes up roughly 39 percent of the country, and it has been dropping for decades. Presenting this data Tuesday afternoon, Vilsack says the trend is worrying. The survey, he says, is “a wakeup call” that is “asking us the critical question of whether we as a country are OK with losing that many farms.” Vilsack also notes that the majority of American farmers currently rely on a second off-farm income to supplement their farming income. Vilsack supports diversifying farmers’ income streams to create a “different model” of farming and help prevent the loss of more farmland. “I sincerely hope that we take this information very seriously,” says Vilsak. “It need not be that every five years we report fewer farms and less farmland. It doesn’t have to be.”

The census collects and details all sorts of information about American agriculture, in order to paint a picture of the industry as a whole. Here are three of our top takeaways from the data. 

Income is going up

Farms and ranches produced $543 billion worth of agricultural products in 2022, up from $389 billion in 2017. As well, the average farm income has gone up, weighing in at $79,790. A little less than half of farms (43 percent) reported positive net cash income in 2022. 

Those numbers could be a sign of the overall inflation in food prices and general cost of living increases since 2017. It could also be a reflection of the overall consolidation of farms—fewer farms, especially smaller farms, mean larger operations are left with less competition. The data shows that there was an increase in farms that had three or more producers between 2017 and 2022 and a decrease in the number of farms with one or two producers.

There are more new farmers, but not necessarily young ones

The average age of the American farmer rose to 58.1 years old in 2022, up 0.6 years from 2017. This is in line with a longer-term trend of an increased average farming age. But as the average farmer gets older, this census also recorded that nearly one-third of all producers are “new” or “beginning”—meaning they’ve been in the business for 10 years or less.

However, newer doesn’t mean younger. The average age of a new farmer was 47.1 years old. This could be in part due to the financial access barriers of getting into farming without a secondary income or fiscal stability. 

You can read more about how young farmers are pushing for access to farmland here. 

More farms have internet access

The 2022 census reports that 79 percent of farms now have internet access, which is up from 75 percent in 2017. Access to the web is important for farmers to stay competitive and be able to use modern, up-to-date equipment. This is especially true as precision agriculture technology continues to find its place on farms. The 2018 Farm Bill included investments into rural broadband, and the current version of the bill is set to expire in September of 2024.

To read more about the fight to get internet access to more rural areas of the country, check out our feature “We’re Cut Off.”

The post Three Takeaways from the USDA Census of Agriculture appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Effective January 1, 2024, intrastate trucks in California must be equipped with Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs), following in the steps of other states that have made similar mandates. Trucks making interstate deliveries have been required to be equipped with ELDs since 2017. 

ELDs are small devices, but the impact they’ve had on the trucking industry is monumental. Monitoring devices that track when the truck is in motion and for what duration, ELDs are largely intended to address road safety issues associated with drivers pushing themselves too far for too long. But some say ELDs are having the opposite effect and are a violation of trucker privacy and workflow.

“It just seems like the trucking industry is getting regulated out of existence,” wrote one trucker, Allen Boyd, in response to a request for comments on ELD regulation updates by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in 2022.

Why ELDs?

Long-haul trucking used to be a secure and respected career. Today, it’s a job with high turnover and a lack of security. Many headlines today talk about the future of trucking, which includes the possibility of autonomous fleets replacing human-driven ones at some point down the line. But the predicament in which truckers find themselves now actually goes back in time by several decades.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, which created a guaranteed minimum wage, passed in 1938. An exemption was included for truckers, so they could earn more and be more productive. But, in 1980, when the Motor Carrier Act was passed, truckers for the first time encountered Hours of Service rules, capping how many hours they were allowed to be on the job. While this is a pretty standard labor regulation, the fact that truckers still didn’t have a minimum wage created the issue as it stands today: Many truckers are paid by the mile, but they are limited in how many hours they can work. To earn a comfortable wage means there’s an implied and incentivized race against the clock. This, of course, is a dangerous combination on the open road.

ELDs are attached to the engine and can set very firm boundaries on how long the truck can be in operation and when it’s time for a mandated break. The FMCSA estimates that ELDs will lead to 1,844 fewer crashes and 26 prevented deaths every year.

The issue, says Karen Levy, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University and author of Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance, is that ELDs don’t address what she believes is the actual root cause of fatigue-related crashes or unsafe driving.

According to Levy, these problems can be traced back to the standard pay structure for long-haul truckers, which is compensation for miles driven. There’s a common saying in the trucking industry, “If the wheels ain’t turning, you ain’t earning.” The issue with this is that there are tasks inherent to the job—getting gas, loading the truck, unloading the truck—that take place when the truck is stationary. As the saying implies, money isn’t earned during these periods, even if they take hours. This can incentivize driving longer without breaks than is safe. 

“One of the things that has really been striking to me is it can’t really be overstated how fundamentally dependent we are on this system that hardly works,” says Levy.

A truck dashboard with an ELD screen. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Not only do ELDs not solve the problem, says Levy, they could even make it worse. Firm constraints on driving time, while the pay structure remains based on distance traveled, means that drivers are implicitly encouraged to drive faster and more recklessly to maximize their mileage within the allotted time.

“We haven’t changed the economic structure of the industry or the rules,” says Levy. “All we changed is how they are monitored.”

It’s only been a few years since the 2017 mandate, but one study suggests that accident rates haven’t gotten better yet and might have even gotten worse.

One of the reasons for this, says Levy, is that it takes the flexibility out of the work. She gives a hypothetical:

Before, if you had 11 hours to get somewhere, and it takes you 11 hours and 10 minutes, it’s not a big deal. That’s just part of being on the road.

But, with an ELD, if you have 11 hours to get somewhere and taking a minute over would put you in violation, you might handle that drive differently.

“You’re probably going to drive much more recklessly, much faster, you’re not going to take the time to go get a cup of coffee if you feel like you need it,” says Levy. “You’re not going to stop and check on something that sounds weird on your truck.”

And, at the end of the allotted drive time, the trucker might not be anywhere near a place they can pull over to rest. If they drive further looking for a truck stop, they risk being in violation. In response to a request for comments on ELD regulation updates by the FMCSA in 2022, an anonymous trucker voiced their concern.

“In my honest opinion since ELD there has been more accidents because drivers are always being forced to race the clock so they can get loaded/unloaded and to [the] next pickup or safe spot to sleep for the night because they are out of hours.”

Another commenter agreed, saying that the ELDs make it harder for drivers to take breaks when they need them. And if they hit traffic, construction or unreliable road conditions, the driver loses miles and hours.

“We keep getting told that these laws, [these] rules are put in place to make it easier and safer for the driver. In doing so, it makes it harder.”

The road ahead

There’s a path forward, says Levy, but it’s got to go beyond just technology. “I don’t think there’s a tweak we could make to the ELD that would solve all the truckers’ problems,” says Levy. Safer roads probably require an approach that focuses more on trucker pay and labor rights. Trevor Ralphs, in a comment response to the FMCSA prompt, echoed Levy’s point about trucker pay structure.

“If you really want to make driving more safe for not only truck drivers but everyone else on the road, you would make it so that truck drivers are all paid hourly. This would make sure truck drivers are not in a rush to make the most money but instead they are taking things slow, steady and safe because you will be paid more for your time.”

Trucks at a truck stop in Missouri. (Photo: Shutterstock)

While the industry pay regulations haven’t changed, some companies have started shifting toward time-based pay in the ELD era. Nathaniel Hosea writes in response to the FMCSA prompt:

“I personally like ELDs as a company driver, it keeps everything organized and I get a[n] hourly pa[y] now. Before ELDs, I got paid CPM [cents per mile] and lost lots of money waiting time in stopped traffic and not being paid at warehouses. Finally, with ELDs and hourly pay, I don’t have to be pressured to speed and driving unsafe to deliver loads.” 

Hosea goes on to say that driving per mile should be a thing of the past. “There should be a law to end CPM [cents per mile] wage payments, traffic is too congested today to make any money on CPM.” 

We should remove the trucker exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act, so that truckers can be paid more fairly, says Levy.

“I think, fundamentally, the problems in the industry are political and economic,” says Levy. “Truckers don’t have the political power to successfully argue for labor rights that would really make us all safer.”

More broadly, says Levy, there’s been a cultural shift from seeing truckers as the heroes of the highway to seeing them as on the fringes of society. But, at the end of the day, our country—and our food system—would not function without long-haul truckers and the work that they do. 

“Building dignity back into the job,” says Levy—not barring them from using business bathrooms or filming them constantly—“those are good places to start.”

***

Interested in learning more about this topic?

You can find Levy’s book here: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175300/data-driven

Truckers are paid a little differently than most other professions. A breakdown of why can be found in this article from FleetOwner. For a longer history of the trucking industry, check out this podcast called On the Move.

The post Driven Out appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“They see us as workers that they can exploit, pay a lesser wage to, that they can replace with machines. But we are the people in the first line of this food chain, and we have to be recognized and respected as such,” says Jiménez.

In 2016, Jiménez started Alianza Agricola, an undocumented farmworker-led advocacy organization fighting for farmworker rights in western New York. In 2019, the group helped in the fight to pass the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act (FLFLPA), a law that grants various labor rights such as collective bargaining, day of rest and overtime pay to farmworkers in the state of New York. It was a huge win, but it’s just the beginning of what’s needed.

Jiménez is not alone in his experience. An estimated 21.5 million people work to grow, harvest, process, pack, transport and sell the food that feeds Americans. Many of them put their well-being at risk to do so. Although undocumented workers face an extra set of challenges, millions of food and farmworkers, regardless of immigration status, are exposed to unsafe working conditions and paid low wages. 

According to the Institute of Health, farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die of heat exposure. They are at risk for injury and illness from heavy machinery or pesticide exposure and in recent years have been disproportionately exposed to wildfire smoke and COVID-19. The vast majority of food and farmworkers are paid low wages, are ineligible for paid sick leave and are not entitled to overtime pay. Advocates say this year’s Farm Bill, a package of legislation passed every five years, presents an opportunity for some of these conditions to change, or at least improve.

The Farm Bill covers programs ranging from crop insurance to conservation incentives to nutrition assistance and more. It is incredibly influential, yet since its inception in 1933, the Farm Bill has failed to include protections for food and farmworkers. Labor rights are technically outside of the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) jurisdiction and covered by the Department of Labor, but their exclusion still reflects how our food system treats its workers, explains Sophie Ackoff, the Farm Bill campaign director at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). 

“Our tax dollars, our programs, are focused on the success of farmers and agribusinesses. And those 21.5 million workers who are doing the bulk of not only the work but the danger of producing food for our country are not in any way protected by the USDA,” says Ackoff.

Jose Oliva, the campaigns director at the HEAL Food Alliance, says the exclusion of workers from the Farm Bill isn’t accidental but rather the result of an exploitative history of agricultural workers—the majority of whom were African American—when the first Farm Bill was written. The bill was written to support farm owners, not workers. Over time, this has turned into support for large agribusinesses, Oliva explains.

“It is essentially a way for the government to ensure that the average farmer is not the recipient of most of the benefits that are built into the farm bill,” he says.

UCS, HEAL Food Alliance and Alianza Agricola, along with other farmworker-led groups, have been advocating for various bills to be included in the upcoming Farm Bill, which was supposed to be renewed in September 2023 but was recently extended to the end of 2024.

Protecting America’s Meatpacking Worker Act

Data from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has revealed that the meatpacking industry is one of the most dangerous jobs in the food system, recording a disproportionately high number of severe employee injuries. Oliva describes working conditions in the meatpacking industry as horrendous. “These are places where folks are and during the pandemic were forced to work even while everyone else was able to work from home or not work at all,” he says.

Nearly eight percent of all early COVID-19 cases and four percent of early COVID-19 deaths were connected to meatpacking plants. At the same time, the profit margins of the meatpacking industry have grown 300 percent since the start of the pandemic. This bill, introduced by Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Ro Khanna, would ensure safer line-processing speeds and stricter standards to protect meat and poultry workers from injury. 

Supporting our Farm and Food System Workforce and The Voice for Farm Workers Act 

Introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla, the Supporting our Farm and Food System Workforce and the Voice for Farm Workers Act would give food and farmworkers a dedicated voice within the USDA and strengthen their role and collaboration in decision-making processes. Despite being essential workers, Jiménez says agricultural workers are rarely heard by those in power. He hopes that is starting to change.

“I think it’s time the government put their eyes on who we are and what we’re doing,” says Jiménez.

Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act

The United States uses more than a billion pounds of pesticides annually, a third of which are currently banned in the European Union. Each year, pesticide exposure harms as many as 20,000 farmworkers, causing them to suffer more chemical-related injuries and illnesses than any other workforce nationwide. Extreme heat also makes pesticides evaporate faster, a major concern as temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, Ackoff explains. The Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act would ban the use of more than 100 toxic pesticides proven to harm both farmworkers and the environment.

Agricultural Worker Justice Act

Agricultural workers are some of the lowest paid workers in the country. In 2020, they earned on average $14.62 per hour, but in many states, the average pay is less than that. For undocumented workers, who make up approximately 50 percent of the farm labor workforce, the pay is even more precarious.

The Agricultural Worker Justice Act, introduced by Sen. Peter Welsch and Rep. Greg Caesar, would ensure that the USDA only purchases food from companies that pay their employees a living wage and would give the federal government tools to regulate and enforce safer working conditions for food and farmworkers.

Across the country, 80 percent of voters support better protections for food and farmworkers. There is immense opportunity to better support the backbone of our $1.053-trillion industry food and agricultural sector, says Ackoff. This year’s Farm Bill is funding-neutral, meaning no additional funding will be added, which could be challenging for the programs mentioned to get adequate funding. But Ackoff is hopeful the one-year extension will give more time to advocate for these changes to be made. Looking beyond 2024, advocates and farmworkers alike continue to fight for long-term change in the food system and to pass bills such as the Fairness for Farm Workers Act, which would update the nation’s 85-year labor laws to ensure farmworkers are paid fairer wages and overtime pay. 

“That would be the most transformative,” says Ackoff.

For Jiménez, the fight for fair working conditions and respect goes beyond himself. Despite the risk, he says he will not stop advocating for what farmworkers—especially undocumented workers—deserve. He wants a better future for his children, one where their worth isn’t undermined by their employer.

“I think that we’re invisible still. And more than anything, we want respect and recognition,” says Jimenez.

The post Farmworker-Led Groups Push For Next Farm Bill to Include Worker Rights and Protections appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Suffering from severe post-traumatic stress, Archipley was ready to retire after his four-year enlistment. “You don’t come back without damage from that,” says Karen. Yet checking out of the armed forces, the couple came to find, was a shockingly abrupt procedure with scant support. At that time, the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Transition Assistance Program, which was developed in 1991 to smooth the shift from active duty to civilian life, extended just four days. “It was harsh,” she says. They were left to navigate a lot on their own, including finding doctors familiar with combat-related conditions while trying to secure appointments at the Veterans Administration—on top of figuring out Archipley’s next career step.

Fortunately, the couple had invested in a 2.5-acre farm in Escondido, near Camp Pendleton, in between tours. “Farming turned out to be really healing,” says Karen, allowing her husband to decompress outdoors through physically demanding but rewarding challenges. After ending his service in 2006, Archipley and his wife established Archi’s Acres, an organic hydroponic farm that supplies basil and other specialty crops to local restaurants and stores.

Inside the Archi’s Acres greenhouse. (Photo courtesy AiSA)

With the successful launch of the business and a renewed sense of purpose, the couple looked to extend their reach. In 2007, they established the Veteran’s Sustainable Agriculture Training program, since renamed as Archi’s Institute for Sustainable Agriculture (AiSA), an agricultural training program designed to transition active and former armed force members into growers. Like a boot camp of sorts, the six-week intensive program immerses students in all aspects of sustainable farming and entrepreneurship and ushers them into viable, agriculture-based careers.

Along the way, it’s also become a platform—one that the Archipleys have leveraged to advocate for stronger government support in transitioning troops out of uniform.

A mission-driven attitude

In recent years, the unemployment rate among veterans has dipped dramatically, generally falling below the national rate. But, according to a study commissioned by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), historically, vets under the age of 24 have faced higher rates, which hit 29 percent in 2011. The gap closes quickly, however, with age and time out of uniform, the report suggests, and with proper education and training, former service members are quick to overcome skill deficits.

“[Those] leaving the military need a new purpose,” says Jeanette Lombardo, executive director of Farmer Veteran Coalition. The non-profit organization supports veterans in their transition to agricultural careers and provides tuition grants to several training programs, including AiSA. The armed forces instill “grit and a mission-driven attitude,” she says, so the challenging nature of farming—the weather, pests and disease, the market—is often a good fit. 

Service members also tend to be well versed in technology, Lombardo notes, making skills such as piloting drones readily transferable to the climate-smart and precision ag sectors. And disabled veterans are just as capable, she adds, particularly in marketing, logistics, distribution and compliance. “It’s a huge talent pool.”

Colin Archipley (far left) and Karen Archipley (far right) with a recent crop of students. (Photo courtesy AiSA)

The armed force’s emphasis on leadership training also helps stoke an entrepreneurial spirit. With a full military career under their belt, “many vets want to be their own boss,” says Tony Lattner, AiSA’s director of education and a retired Marine, “or [move on to] some type of supervisory role.” He notes that of the 600 or so program graduates, more than two-thirds either own their own farm or business or manage an operation.

Along with teaching agronomics, soil health and sustainable farming practices, AiSA places a big emphasis on developing an agriculture-related enterprise. Over six weeks, the curriculum covers the full seed-to-market process including access to financing, food safety and building a business plan around a farming operation. The program, which is also open to civilians, moved completely online in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to better accommodate service members spread throughout the world. (Local students still have the option of additional, on-site training.)

The class culminates in a final exam and a Shark Tank-style pitch to a jury of food professionals, industry leaders and investors. In addition to farming, graduates have gone on to launch successful ventures such as a chain of empanada stores in San Diego and a custom meat-processing facility serving small-scale ranchers in Lancaster, Kentucky.

The fast pace translates to three hours of classes twice a week and around five hours of daily reading and assignments. “It’s like a full-time job,” says Arlet Galindo, a current student. A human resources specialist in the Air Force, she’d been stationed in Turkey for her final assignment and has been juggling her studies while settling into life back home in Los Angeles. But organization, structure and time management come with the territory, she says. “That’s the military mentality—you just have to get it done. Failure is not an option,” she adds with a laugh.

The AiSA program places a big emphasis on developing an agriculture-related enterprise. (Photo courtesy AiSA)

Galindo is one of a number of students in the 15-person class attending the course through SkillBridge, a DoD career transition program. Established in 2011, it allows service members to acquire civilian work experience through training, internships and apprenticeships during the final 180 days of their enlistment. Although the positions are unpaid, troops are relieved of their military duties and receive pay and benefits throughout the transition period.

The scaffolding is essential to post-service success, says Karen Archipley. Before SkillBridge, troops were being pushed out of the military with little civilian experience and a lot of vulnerability. “People often took any job they could get because they had families to support or medical needs to cover,” she says, recalling an early AiSA graduate who attended the class while homeless. In 2013, in a plea to bolster career transition support for veterans, the Archipleys presented his story and other similar cases to then-OSD director Frank DiGiovanni—leading the White House to later recognize their efforts.

A new call to service

In 2016, AiSA became a college credit program through Cal Poly Extended Extension, a move that allowed service members to tap their GI Bill benefits for tuition. But as of last year, a new partnership with the University of Minnesota Crookston gives program graduates a fully accredited agricultural certificate—a credential that equates to a year’s worth of working experience when applying for the USDA’s Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Beginning Farmer loan.

Along with helping students leverage their military background to access capital, the program also emphasizes market viability. As a course requirement, students submit a comprehensive business plan at the end of the term—one that can be handed over to a loan officer or used to attract investors. “The whole idea is that their [venture] is sustainable, both financially and resource-wise,” says Lattner, the educational director. “If you have to get a second job to run the farm, it defeats the purpose.”

Tony Lattner points out student projects. (Photo: Naoki Nitta)

Samantha Stephens, a recent AiSA graduate winding down a decade-long career in the Marines, was startled to find out what it would take to run her husband’s family ranch in Georgia. While the mother of two—with a third on the way—will concentrate on parenting for the next few years, the couple’s long-term plan is to expand the two-acre llama, goat and sheep farm to include cows, chickens and a greenhouse. Understanding the breadth of compliance, taxes and regulations “opened my eyes to how much we’ll need to produce to justify doing the business,” she says.

Still, students see their service background as an apt segue to farming. There are obvious parallels in decision-making and prioritization, says Grant Taute. The current student and Osprey pilot is hanging up his wings after 20 years in the Marine Corps to become an avocado and specialty crop farmer outside of San Diego. Despite a very different professional pace, he says, the process is similar. “Whether it’s water, time or money, you constantly have to decide, ‘how am I going to best expend this resource?’”

And, ultimately, many service members see farming as yet another calling. Erick Raymundo-Vidrio, an aircraft technician retiring from a seven-year career in the Air Force, is planning to start a container farm. By bolstering food security for his community, he says, “I still feel like I’m answering a call to serve. Just at a smaller scale.”

The post Troops Leaving Service Find New Purpose on the Farm appeared first on Modern Farmer.

This especially applied if farmers weren’t wealthy beforehand, weren’t running their business like a hobby or didn’t have substantial side income. Nevertheless, these farms were honorably scraped together from nothing, their growers much like passionate artists in the field; their art: beautiful, healthy local food. But although they worked as hard and long as the founders of successful companies, making the same personal sacrifices, these farmers couldn’t seem to even earn a decent living off farm income alone. Still, they were driven—by something, if not for money.

My biggest takeaway from those years? “When I start my own farm, I will need to have off-farm income to live a balanced, happy life.” When I started Jupiter Ridge Farm in 2017, I did—and still do, like many traditional family farms. But why is it like this? Why is running a small-scale farm more like an expensive hobby? And what does this mean for the future of our food?

Ben Saunders started Wabi Sabi Farm near Des Moines, Iowa in 2013, drawing enough customers to live off diverse vegetable farm income for about 10 years. He said some communities can support local food farmers this way; that’s not the case with Iowa now.

“Single person, no student loans… I could live on very little,” says Saunders. Of his farm’s name, he says, “Wabi Sabi is a belief system recognizing the imperfect beauty in nature… the natural cycles of growth and decay.” Although principally operating as a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), Saunders also worked with food pantries. “I didn’t care about having straight rows… I wanted to produce food for people.”

In early 2023, however, he closed his doors forever. Unpredictable weather and the changing local food scene plagued him. CSA memberships dropped as door-to-door meal prep companies boomed. Farmers markets became less about farmers and more like craft shows packed with food trucks. His personal life suffered; long hours meant little time for family, friends, relationships. “I had to get out,” he says. 

“I wanted to produce food for people,” says Ben Saunders of his time running Wabi Sabi Farm. (Photo courtesy of Ben Saunders)

He didn’t fully walk away from farming, in a sense. He now works full-time for a commercial greenhouse, still driven to grow—just for somebody else. Would his farm still be in operation if the business were more sustainable? “I had a feeling it could have been, yes.”

Increasingly, small farm businesses are becoming less profitable, data suggests, and must be run more like hobby farms. Some small farms are even classified as hobby farms by default (10 acres or less in some areas), may lose agricultural tax or property benefits and not be legally considered a farm, despite producing food for their local communities. Per the 2021 Ag Census, data also showed that, from 2011 to 2021, small farmers were increasingly likely to operate as high-risk businesses.

Although long a reality of farming life, more and more small farms are turning into businesses that need side income to survive. Even midsize and large family farms operators tend to have a more lucrative off-farm job or a spouse with side income. While many family farms may say this is just part of the lifestyle, it represents the diminishing value we assign to farm labor and the difficult math of small-scale farming.

Nevertheless, full-time farm life is attractive and paints an idyllic picture. The rewards are great: a connection with nature, eating healthy, an appealing countryside lifestyle. But lurking in the background can be endless worry, stress and financial strife when the farm is the farmer’s sole income stream. Some farmers I’ve spoken to amass debt they couldn’t pay back to stay open. Major repairs were unaffordable. There was no personal time— each step off farm could trigger massive anxiety. Summer vacation? Impossible. Personal lives and relationships? In jeopardy, or nonexistent.

What’s clear though is that some farmers, even when not making ends meet, can’t stop. Growing food for your local community can be an itch that needs scratching. I can attest to this, and so can Jordan Scheibel, who started his small diverse vegetable business Middle Way Farm in central Iowa back in 2013. He, too, announced he was closing in 2023— but not forever.

“Despite the burnout, despite the lack of profitability… it’s quite personal,” he says of taking a year’s hiatus to reopen in 2024. Lack of family time and financial struggles were present, but these weren’t at the heart of the problem. 

Jordan Scheibel experienced burnout while operating his diverse vegetable farm. (Photos courtesy of Jordan Scheibel)

In 2020, Middle Way Farm scaled up rapidly to meet the pandemic local food boom. His passion for growing tapped this urgency to meet demand— but threatened his farming endurance capacity altogether, and thus the business’s long-term future. “I was well aware, on some level, of all of these problems the whole time,” he adds. “I was working too much, and I didn’t think it was ever going to improve… Really, for me, until I decided to step back, [the impulse to farm] was what was pushing me.”

A 2017 Guardian article described an ‘agrarian imperative theory’ whereby farmers have a strong urge to supply essentials for human life, such as food, and to hold on to their land at all costs. “When farmers can’t fulfill this instinctual purpose, they feel despair,” the article reads. “Thus, within the theory lies an important paradox: The drive that makes a farmer successful is the same that exacerbates failure”— economic failure. And it’s not the fault of the farmer. Our food economy is built on farm life amnesia: The lifestyle is romanticized, but the real labor (and those willing to do it) is hidden from view. The farming lifestyle is admired, marketed, monetized—while local food farmers, especially small-scale operators, and agricultural labor are pushed deeper into the shadows.

Small and family farm numbers are dropping, and even the most dedicated growers are run ragged by the economic reality. From 2012 to 2017, the US lost almost 54,000 small family farms. All this is ironic: Urbanites may be longing for “farm life” since the pandemic, but consumers largely don’t go out of their way to support farmers directly—whether due to the high prices some small farmers must set, issues of convenience or other factors—and thus support this lifestyle they admire. Buying direct from full-time small local farmers helps whenever possible, whether at farmers markets or through CSA memberships. If you run a food-related business or institution such as a restaurant, grocer or university kitchen, sourcing directly from farmers can be especially impactful.

(Photos courtesy of Adrian White)

Scheibel also mentions pressure from similar yet bigger, more profit-focused farms, to scale up. Only, these farms closed before his. “They were profitable,” says Scheibel. “But they were never satisfied…They felt they were putting in the amount of work where they deserved to earn a lot more than that. Because most people who put in that amount of work would be CEOs.” 

Wealthy, business-minded people are getting drawn to agriculture–Bill Gates, Thomas Peterrfy, Dan Barber, to name a few; an interest to become the farmer, rather than support the farmer, is on the rise. This could be good, although the prospect of small, local food farming getting “gentrified” into hobby farms (by the people who can afford it) looms in my head. But I do know that farming demands something beyond business acumen to be successful. 

Long-term, sustainable, small-scale farm businesses don’t survive if there isn’t passion there, that drive and “farmer’s impulse” no money could make up for. “Being able to paint on a landscape… and every year you get to re-make that… it’s extremely satisfying,” says Scheibel. “But, yeah… that’s an impulse. That’s separate from running the business.” And that’s not to say wealthy would-be farmers can’t hear the farm call, get the itch.

Maybe we’re evolved to be farmers; maybe it’s in our DNA. But if you feel called to enter the local food marketplace, be prepared to collaborate— not compete—with farmers from all backgrounds to improve the local food market and survivability rates of others like you. Because we are an endangered species. And we can’t afford to shove each other out of what tiny natural habitat we have left.

“[Farming] has to exist,” says Scheibel. “Because it’s needed. It’s absolutely necessary. But to actually do it on a scale… where you feel connected and integrated into what you’re doing… is not ‘profitable.’ And that’s where we’re at.”

The post Small-Scale Farming Shouldn’t Just Be a Hobby. So Why Is It So Hard to Make a Living?  appeared first on Modern Farmer.

You’re shopping for a bag of coffee beans at the grocery store. After reading about the effects of climate change and how little farmers make – typically $0.40 per cup – you figure it might be time to change your usual beans and buy something more ethical. Perusing the shelves in the coffee aisle, though, you see too many choices.

First up is the red tub of Folgers “100% Colombian,” a kitchen staple – “lively with a roasted and rich finish.” On the side of the tub, you see the icon of Juan Valdez with his donkey, Conchita – a fictional mascot representing the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation.

Next might be Starbucks “Single-Origin Colombia.” One side of the green bag tells “the story” of the beans, describing “treacherous dirt roads” to “6,500 feet of elevation” that are “worth the journey every time.” The other shows a QR code and promises Starbucks is “Committed to 100% Ethical Coffee Sourcing in partnership with Conservation International.”

Then again, you’ve heard that a “better” choice would be to buy from local cafes. The bag from your local roaster introduces you to La Familia Vieira of Huila, Colombia, who have worked as coffee farmers for four generations at 1,600 meters above sea level – about a mile. But then there’s a flood of unfamiliar lingo: the 88-point anerobic-processed coffee was sourced directly from an importer who has a six-year relationship with the family, paid $3.70 per pound at farmgate, and $6.10 per pound FOB at a time when the C-market price was $1.60 per pound.

If you’re about ready to toss in the towel, you’re hardly alone. Consumers are often asked to make more responsible choices. Yet when it comes to commodity goods like coffee, the complex production chain can turn an uncomplicated habit into a complicated decision.

Workers wash and sort coffee beans. (Photo: Shutterstock)

As a coffee enthusiast and marketing professor who researches marketplace justice, I’ve long been fascinated with how ethics and coffee consumption are intertwined. Before COVID-19, my family adopted a cat and named him Yukro, after a coffee-producing community in Ethiopia. While we were quarantining at home, I ordered Yukro-originating coffee from as many roasters as I could find to try to understand how consumers were supposed to make an informed choice.

Paradoxically, the more information I gleaned, the less I knew how to make a responsible decision. Indeed, prior research has indicated that information overload increases the paradox of choice; this is no different when factoring in ethical information. Additionally, as with a lot of consumer-facing information, it can be difficult to tell what information is relevant or credible.

Marketers attempt to simplify this overload by using buzzwords that sound good but may not get across much nuance. However, you might consider some of these terms when trying to decide between “100% Colombian” and the Vieira family.

Fair trade

As a benchmark, the coffee industry typically uses the “C-price”: the traded price on the New York Intercontinental Exchange for a pound of coffee ready for export. “Fair trade” implies the coffee is fairly traded, often with the goal of paying farmers minimum prices – and fixed premiums – above the C-price.

There are a few different fair trade certifications, such as Fairtrade America or Fair Trade Certified. Each of these has its own, voluntary certification standards linked with the associated organization. Yet obtaining certification can come at significant additional cost for farms or importers.

In contrast, some importers, or even roasters, have established relationships with specific farms, rather than buying beans at auction on the open market. These relationships potentially allow the importers to work directly with farmers over multi-year periods to improve the coffee quality and conditions. Longer-term commitment can provide farmers more certainty in times when the C-price is below their cost of production.

Yet these arrangements can be just as volatile for farmers if the importers they’ve committed to cannot find roasters interested in buying their beans – beans they could have sold at auction themselves.

100% arabica

There are several species of coffee, but approximately 70% of the world’s production comes from the arabica species, which grows well at higher altitudes. Like with wine, there are several varieties of arabica, and they tend to be a bit sweeter than other species – making arabica the ideal species for satisfying consumers.

In other words, a label like “100% arabica” is meant to signal deliciousness and prestige – though it’s about as descriptive as calling a bottle of pinot noir “100% red.”

When it comes to the environment, though, arabica isn’t necessarily a win. Many arabica varieties are susceptible to climate change-related conditions such as coffee rust – a common fungus that spreads easily and can devastate farms – or drought.

Other coffee species such as robusta or the less common eugenioides are more climate-change resistant, reducing costs of production for farmers, and are cheaper on commodity markets. However, they have a bit of a different taste profile than what folks are normally used to, which could mean lower earnings for farmers who make the switch, but could also provide new opportunities in areas where coffee was not previously farmed or to new markets of consumers’ tastes.

“Shade-grown” coffee doesn’t increase deforestation. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Single-origin

If someone labeled a peach as “American,” a consumer would rightly wonder where exactly it came from. Similarly, “single-origin” is a very broad description that could mean the coffee came from “Africa” or “Ethiopia” or “Jimma Zone” – even the zone’s specific town of “Agaro.” “Single-estate” at least gives slightly more farm-level information, though even this information may be tough to come by.

Consumers have tended to want their coffee’s journey from seed to cup to be traceable and transparent, which implies that everyone along the production chain is committed to equity – and “single-origin” appears to provide those qualities.

As a result, some coffee marketers invest quite a bit in being able to craft a narrative that emotionally resonates with consumers and makes them feel “connected” to the farm. Others have developed blockchain solutions where each step along the coffee’s journey, from bean to retail, is documented in a database that consumers can look at. Since blockchain data are immutable, the information a consumer gets from scanning a QR code on a label of a coffee bag should provide a clear chain of provenance.

Shade-grown

Shade-grown labels indicate that farms have adopted a more environmentally sustainable method, using biomatter like dead leaves as natural fertilizer for the coffee shrubs growing beneath a canopy of trees. Unlike other methods, shade-grown coffee doesn’t increase deforestation, and it protects habitats for animals like migratory birds – which is why the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, which has developed its own coffee certification program, calls it “bird-friendly.”

But as with fair trade, there are costs associated with certification, and those costs are often passed on to consumers. Farmers or importers are left justifying the cost and wondering if the specialized label can attract a large enough market to validate their decision to certify. That said, many farmers who have the ability will do shade-grown regardless, since it’s a better farming practice and saves some costs on fertilizer.

In the end, all this information – or lack thereof – is a tool for consumers to use when making their coffee choices. Like any tool, sometimes it’s helpful, and sometimes not. These labels might not make your decision any easier, and might drive you right back to your “usual” bag of beans – but at least your choice can be more nuanced.

Spencer M. Ross is an Associate Professor of Marketing at UMass Lowell.

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

The post Navigating the Buzzwords Behind an ‘Ethical’ Bag of Coffee appeared first on Modern Farmer.

He was excited to begin a promising new life in America, with opportunities and comforts he could never have imagined back home. But this fantasy was quickly shattered by the harsh reality of dairy farming. 

“When I got there, I saw that I was going to be living in an old trailer all by myself,” he says. “No cellphone service. No internet. Just totally alone and isolated. That was my first shock.” 

When Balcazar began work a few days later, he didn’t know how to do the job and didn’t understand the language. But he immediately began putting in long hours, seven days a week. 

He was excited when pay day came around and he got his first check. “When I opened it, my heart sank. I was only getting paid $3 to $4 an hour,” he says. “For the work I was doing and as hard as I was working, it was much less than I expected.”

Balcazar approached the farm manager, who told him, “it is what it is,” and if he stuck around, he might eventually get a raise. 

Months passed, but the raise never came. 

Vermont’s dairy industry relies heavily on the labor of undocumented migrant farmworkers. (Photo courtesy of Migrant Justice)

Balcazar’s story is typical for undocumented migrant farmworkers in Vermont, who now comprise the overwhelming majority of dairy workers in the state. 

Dairy farms in the region are under immense pressure to cut costs due to industry consolidation and globalization, which allows powerful agribusinesses to place downward pressure on farmers’ incomes. Farmers then hire migrant workers who they can pay far below minimum wage. 

The visa program and federal law designed to protect seasonal migrant workers, such as agricultural workers in California, for example, don’t apply to dairy farmworkers in Vermont because of the year-round nature of dairy production. 

As a result, the majority of these workers face dangerous work conditions and live in substandard housing. Despite paying taxes, they do not have the rights of US citizens and are under constant threat of deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol.

Migrant Justice, a Vermont-based farmworker-led organization, was founded in 2010 in response to the death of José Obeth Santiz Cruz, a 20-year-old migrant worker from Chiapas killed in a tragic workplace accident, and the rampant exploitation taking place on most dairy farms. 

Its signature program is Milk with Dignity, which enlists powerful corporations to pay a premium to help raise wages and improve conditions on supplier farms. Compliance is monitored by an independent third-party organization.

Will Lambek, an activist with Migrant Justice, says that one of the reasons that dairy workers  created this program is because of the state’s failure to address labor and housing violations. 

“The structure set up through the Department of Labor and the Department of Health have left farmworkers out and haven’t protected their rights,” he says. “So, that’s why dairy workers created their own model … to ensure dignified treatment for their workers.”

Rubinay Montero, a Migrant Justice leader, marches through Middlebury, Vermont in December 2022. (Photo courtesy of Migrant Justice)

When Balcazar was just seven years old, his father moved to Vermont to work on a dairy farm. He would send money back to Mexico to support his family, but the money wasn’t enough, so in 2011, when Enrique was 17, he followed his father to the United States.

As a child of farmworkers, getting a visa wasn’t an option, so he decided to risk his life crossing the border. It was a significant risk, but it was his best chance to earn enough money to continue his education in Mexico. 

That’s how he became one of the millions of mostly black and brown migrants and refugees escaping unstable governments and economic crises caused in part by centuries of imperialism, exploitation and deliberate underdevelopment. Many arrive in the U.S. to take jobs that offer low wages and no benefits, that would otherwise remain unfilled and that are essential to the US economy.

After a couple of months working on that Vermont farm without a raise, Balcazar found a new position on the farm where his father worked. It was there that two members of Migrant Justice visited him and invited him to a community assembly. That visit would change everything for Balcazar. 

When he showed up at the assembly, he felt a strong sense of community because there was a room full of farmworkers, just like him, talking about the same injustices that he had experienced. It was the first time he realized that his experience wasn’t an isolated incident; the problems his community was facing were systemic. 

“For decades, the migrant community has been criminalized and persecuted by a system that wants our labor but doesn’t care about our lives,” says Balcazar.

At that moment, he thought about his parents and everything they had gone through. “It left a mark on me and I had a realization of the challenges and the solution: organizing for our human rights,” he says.

Although Balzcazar was working 60-70 hours a week without a day off, he became increasingly involved in Migrant Justice. At the time, it was starting to organize for freedom of movement, allowing migrant workers access to driver’s licenses. “That was really exciting for me because I saw that people were working together based on those common experiences,” says Balacazar. “And so, right there, I was hooked.” 

Enrique Balcazar leads a protest at a Hannaford Supermarket in April 2023. (Photo courtesy of Migrant Justice)

Balcazar has since emerged as one of Migrant Justice’s most visible and vocal leaders. His activism has helped to improve not only his own work and living conditions but those of hundreds of migrant dairy farm workers in Vermont. 

After two years of advocacy, Migrant Justice was instrumental in passing a law allowing migrant workers to get driver’s licenses, which has changed farmworkers’ lives in rural Vermont. 

Balcazer also became a part of developing the Milk with Dignity program and the campaign to enlist Ben & Jerry’s, which is based in Vermont and is the largest ice cream company in the US with 2022 sales of $910.68 million. 

In 2014, Migrant Justice began pressuring the company with protests in front of Ben & Jerry’s stores, picketing its board meetings and marches.

One day, they marched 13 miles to their ice cream factory. “Imagine working 12 hours on a farm, before spending the whole day walking under the sun and  going right back to another shift. Those were the sacrifices that we made to defend their dignity,” says Balcazar.

It was during this time that Balcazar and other community leaders were detained by ICE. Eventually, thanks to mobilization from the community, Balcazar was freed. 

“That was a really difficult experience, but having gone through it, I want to say this deepened my commitment even more to continue fighting for justice and human rights for my community,” he says.

Migrant Justice eventually won a contract with Ben & Jerry’s in 2017, which covers 100 percent of Ben & Jerry’s northeast dairy supply chain and 20 percent of Vermont’s dairy industry. This has changed the lives of more than 200 farmworkers. Migrant Justice reports that, since the agreement, $3.4 million has been invested in workers’ wages and bonuses and dramatically improving labor and housing conditions. The goal is to expand the program to cover every farm in Vermont and nationwide.

Farmworkers picket in front of the corporate headquarters of Hannaford Supermarket in Scarborough, Maine in February 2023. (Photo courtesy of Migrant Justice)

Now, Migrant Justice is trying to enlist Hannaford Supermarket to the Milk with Dignity program. Hannaford is headquartered in Maine, with nearly 200 shops all over New England and New York. It’s one of the largest supermarket chains in the Northeast and a significant buyer of dairy products in the Northeast. 

“Hannaford has had a number of responses over the course of the campaign and has consistently rejected calls to sit down with dairy workers in their supply chain,” says Lambek.

Hannaford is a subsidiary of the Dutch agribusiness giant Ahold Delhaize, which reported $91.51 billion in sales in 2022. Both companies claim to be committed to respecting human rights.

However, Migrant Justice alleges that labor and housing rights violations are taking place on supplier farms for Hannaford supermarkets. Hannaford has said it has investigated those allegations and that none have been substantiated. 

After facing pressure from the public, one of Hannaford’s responses has been to set up its own hotline, called the “Speak Up” line. Workers in its supply chains can submit a complaint if their rights are being violated. When it made the announcement last year, workers decided to take the company up on it.

“Workers on 10 farms submitted complaints, and, through their experience, have shown that this company line is a farce,” says Lambek. “It hasn’t protected any worker’s rights and hasn’t provided any remedy for workers who have been abused.”

Most recently, in June of this year,  Hannaford released a statement saying, “Because of the complexity and scope of the issues facing migrant farmworkers, we do not feel this approach is scalable. Nor do we feel that these issues can be solved with a patchwork of loosely affiliated programs like Milk with Dignity working independently.”

Research supports the effectiveness of Milk with Dignity’s approach. Milk with Dignity is an example of a worker-driven social responsibility program (WSR) that is designed and led by farmworkers. It was modeled after the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Fair Food Program and has been shown by a 10year longitudinal study to be “the most effective framework for protecting human rights in corporate supply chains.” Earlier this year, Harvard Law School published a report calling WSR “a new, proven model for defining, claiming, and protecting workers’ human rights.”

Farmworkers pose outside their farm, a participant in the Milk with Dignity Program. Efrain (R) reflects: “Before you just had to do what they told you. No holidays, no sick days, no vacation, no bonuses, no raises. Before we didn’t have protections. Now we do. We feel more dignified.”

Balcazar can attest to how much migrant workers’ lives improve once their employers join WSR programs such as Milk with Dignity. When he reflects on his arrival in Vermont 12 years ago, the change has been drastic.

“Now, you can drive to the store without fear, you can take your family out to a park and, if you’re working on a farm, then, when you’re working, you have dignified conditions that you deserve,” says Balcazar.

Balcazar and his community envision a future where their Milk with Dignity program expands to cover every farm. Public awareness and support can help them achieve this goal.

“The next time that you drink a glass of milk or eat that pint of ice cream,” he says, “remember: the cows don’t milk themselves.”

The post This Farmworker Collective is Organizing For ‘Milk With Dignity’ and More appeared first on Modern Farmer.

For new farmers, this isn’t the whole story. Alaska is the country’s largest state, with an immense amount of wilderness, yet this creates a misconception that the state is one of the few places a new farmer can find affordable farmland.

“The idea that we are a land of plenty, in that regard, is incorrect,” says Phoebe Autry, who runs Sauntering Roots farm in Palmer, a city about 45 minutes north of Anchorage, and is the farmland conservation director at the Alaska Farmland Trust. Autry receives about three to four phone calls per month, as well as an email per week, from new farmers seeking land in Alaska. “About ninety percent of these people are from outside of Alaska,” says Autry. They expect land in Alaska to be cheaper, even close to major markets. Often, Autry has to dissuade them. For farmland near the largest markets in Alaska—the Mat-Su Valley and Anchorage—Autry says, “We’re looking at fair market values per acre of $25,000 to $40,000.” In 2021, the USDA listed the average value for an acre of farmland in California at $13,860. In Florida, it’s $7,300. In Kansas, it’s $2,100. It did not track values for Alaska. 

Even farther north, farmers see similarly high prices. A new farmer might believe that the conditions in a town like Fairbanks would make farmland affordable. Much of it overlays permafrost, winter temperatures drop below -40 degrees Fahrenheit and the growing season is only four or five months long. Still, the Fairbanks North Star Borough lists “lack of available and affordable farmland” as a key barrier to increasing agriculture. Fairbanks farmer Brad St. Pierre puts it bluntly: “There is no cheap farmland in Alaska.” 

St. Pierre runs a diversified, organic vegetable farm on a 75-acre plot with his wife, Christine. Having difficulty affording farmland in Fairbanks, the couple rents from a private landowner, about 10 miles from downtown. The farm is successful, and the St. Pierres were named the 2019 Alaska Farm Family of the Year. Yet, they are unsure whether the equity they build in the soil will be theirs down the line.

Brad St Pierre and kids. Photography courtesy of St Pierre.

Across the country, historically underserved farmers have the most difficulty accessing land. The U.S. Department of Agriculture includes in that category beginning farmers: those who have run a farm for 10 years or less. Like St. Pierre, whose family came to the U.S. from Cuba with only “their wedding ring and the clothes on their back,” these farmers rarely have family wealth or land.

Without a nest egg, new farmers turn to cheaper land. That comes with pitfalls. In the far north, more affordable farmland often overlays permafrost, which causes slumping and sinkholes when it thaws. A Fairbanks study notes that while climate change increases growing days which many are touting as a bright future for Alaska farming—warming also causes permafrost to thaw more rapidly, rendering portions of the land unusable. Glenna Gannon, assistant professor of sustainable food systems at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says that “beginning farmers often don’t have a ton of capital at their fingertips, and they look at the land they can afford, not the land they need.”

Clearing land, using plastic for high tunnels and mulch and irrigation exacerbate permafrost degradation. “Those practices can be highly disruptive to permafrost, so we see an exponential rate of thaw and subsidence in the presence of some permafrost types,” says Gannon.  

This LiDAR image shows “polygone formations” in a field near Fairbanks that was cleared in 1908 for farming and was abandoned by the 1920’s due to permafrost thaw. Image by Benjamin Jones

Ultimately, farmland close to the market is the most important to preserve because it keeps these costs and risks down. But farmland near town gets more expensive when it competes with residential and business development, two more economically viable uses. “We’re doing our best to preserve the best land that we have, [but] we’ve lost so much of it already,” says Autry. “We have a housing subdivision sitting on farmland that has 12feet of topsoil. It breaks my heart.”

It would be difficult for a new farmer to come to Alaska, buy farmland close to town and turn a profit in a reasonable time, says Sam Knapp, who runs Offbeet Farm in Fairbanks. Maybe if the farmers are “coming in with money,” Knapp says they might fare alright. Knapp’s farm is in a residential area on land he purchased with income from a second job and the support of his wife.

Second incomes are often critical for farmers in Alaska. This means less time to turn a profit on the farm. Additionally, what best prepares farmers for success, such as working someone else’s farm and studying for a degree, does not allow them to save money.

Such difficulties drive new farmers in Alaska to plots even farther from town. Like the land overlaying permafrost, these plots are cheaper to buy but more expensive to keep. Undeveloped land must be cleared and cultivated over years before planting a crop for sale. Remote land requires building water and power infrastructure, transporting goods to market and shipping in equipment and fertilizer. With such thin margins in farming, these costs are prohibitive.

Nels Christensen plans to farm 40 acres of his family’s allotment land, 145 miles northeast of Fairbanks in the sovereign nation of Gwichyaa Zhee, also called Fort Yukon. Allotments are part of a federal program that requires Native Americans to ask for land back that the U.S. government originally took from them. Christensen dreams of returning to Fort Yukon to farm that land, yet he is hesitant to start in a place far from infrastructure and markets. Although he has gardened since childhood, he started farming one year ago, at age 21. He predicts it will be “difficult to have stability and prosper” in Fort Yukon at this early stage.

Phoebe Autry. Photography courtesy of Autry.

There are USDA grants for beginning farmers and loans through the Farm Service Agency and the Alaska Rural Rehabilitation Corporation. The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and soil and water conservation districts provide free technical and financial support. Still, new farmers in Alaska find it difficult to own the land they farm. When farmers do not own, they owe.

Throughout the country, there is a high concentration of farmland in the hands of a few landholders who are aging out. The market incentivizes their heirs to develop it for other uses. Farmland wanes and new farmers cannot afford what is left. The nation’s largest, most wild state is no exception. The next generation of farmers cannot benefit from Alaska’s abundant territory if communities do not find ways to help them own and keep the land best suited for the job.

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But what does regenerative agriculture mean? There is still no hard and fast definition despite this excitement and celebrity endorsement. Now, 60 percent of the biggest agribusinesses in the world use the term, all in different ways. It’s official: Regenerative agriculture has been hijacked. 

Two organizations want to put an end to the wild west of claims and prove, through certification, that food labeled regenerative is genuinely the gold standard of sustainability and not just another marketing buzzword. 

But it’s not quite that simple. Even these two organizations—Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) and the Land to Market—can’t agree on what, exactly, regenerative farming means. They have different approaches to certification, according to Peter Newton, associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

“This distinction,” says Newton, “raises interesting implications about how you define regenerative agriculture.” 

Photography courtesy of Regenerative Organic Alliance.

For some, the term is a step beyond simply organic farming. Elizabeth Whitlow, executive director of Regenerative Organic Alliance, the non-profit that governs ROC, says its new standards came into existence because “organic isn’t enough.” 

The certification, funded by the Rodale Institute, Patagonia and Dr Bronner’s, insists on five practices to improve soil health: integrating livestock, keeping the soil covered, minimizing soil disturbance, incorporating diversity and zero chemicals, as well as a soil test every three years. Plus, there are rigorous worker and animal welfare standards, such as paying staff a living wage and ensuring animals can display natural habitats. 

“A lot of those principles are missing from the federal organic program,” says Whitlow, who views the social and animal welfare outcomes as just as important as the carbon these practices should, in theory, store. 

But she maintains that “organic is still really important,” and that’s why USDA organic standards, food grown without most pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, is the minimum baseline for the ROC certification. 

“Doing no-till while using [glyphosate] is not going to regenerate the planet,” says Whitlow, who points to the spectrum of regenerative farmers, some who prefer not to plough but still spray herbicides. 

Nut farmer Benina Montes of Burroughs Family Farms in California says she chose to certify her almonds with ROC because of the environmental and economic benefits of ROC’s practices and brand. 

“By having some diversity and building soil health, we will be more resilient to drought and major rain,” says Montes. As a result of the ROC standards, livestock now graze the cover crops in the almond orchards, fertilizing the soil with their manure and providing space for beneficial insects. 

Plus, the buzz of regenerative farming has provided ample commercial opportunities for Montes and the farm’s almond butter, with contracts with major retailers such as Whole Foods and Amazon.  

“It’s all tied together,” says Montes, who sees strong synergies between soil health, staff well-being and profit. Her family farm has been organic certified since 2006, but it only adopted the ROC standards in June 2022.  She is excited to see if the new regenerative organic practices improve soil health, having tested it at the start of the certification process, with planned tests every three years to track progress. 

But whether the soil will show changes or indeed lead to ROC’s promised outcomes of “mitigating climate change and restoring communities” has yet to be seen. And the assumption that it will work is a bone of contention for Newton and what distinguishes the two sets of standards. 

“What scientists, researchers and also consumers might reasonably ask is, ‘What is the evidence that shows these practices will reliably lead to these outcomes?’” asks Newton. 

Photography courtesy of Regenerative Organic Alliance.

In contrast to this practice-based certification, the Savory Institute’s Land to Market certification is verified through outcomes. In theory, this means the standard directly measures and rewards a farmer’s tangible progress on carbon storage, biodiversity, soil health and water, but it doesn’t matter what practices a farmer employs to get there. 

In the words of Land to Market’s co-CEO, Chris Kerston, “We’re letting the outcomes speak for themselves.”

“Just by removing chemicals doesn’t mean that the land is healing,” says Kerston. “You can feed an animal grass and still overgraze the hell out of the land.” 

Land to Market brand certifies land through its third-party Ecological Outcomes Verification (EOV) methodology developed by Savory Institution founder and TED Talk phenomenon Allan Savory more than 20 years ago as a management tool for graziers. 

While ROC certifies a wide spectrum of crops, livestock and fibre, Land to Market only covers animal products: meat, dairy and leather. 

Land to Market frames its products as coming “from land that is regenerating.” If farmers, through an independent EOV test, show that the ecology—based on soil health, carbon storage, biodiversity and water—is improving, then their land can be certified and they can sell their animals for a premium to brands that increasingly want to reduce the impact of the products, such as EPIC Provisions, Timberland and Applegate. 

Photography courtesy of Cabriejo Ranch.

For livestock farmer and Land to Market certified producer Reuben Hendricks of Cabriejo Ranch, good ecology is good for business. The higher prices he can justify are “just the gravy on top” of focusing on land quality. 

“[We] make more money by improving the land management,” says Hendricks. At his ranch, they perform short-term monitoring of data points such as species diversity and the amount of bare soil. The results have impressed Hendricks, too. In a carbon test, the organic matter in the sample has increased from one percent in 2018 to slightly less than five percent in 2023. 

“This holds and stores water for longer, increases the fertility of the soil and diversifies plant species, which increases nutrition to the animals,” says Hendricks. It also means “more carbon in the ground.” 

Instead of prescribing practices that farmers can or can’t do, Kerston says it’s a “model of continuous improvement,” which is accessible to any farmer, whether they are on degraded land or a top-performing producer, as long as they are improving the state of the land. 

Newton suggests this model could be “more open to innovation” than practice-based certifications, because an outcome such as carbon sequestration could be achieved through any number of mechanisms. 

Meanwhile, Whitlow from ROC maintains that it matters what practices you use to get to the outcome. 

“I can load my truck up with coal dust and spread it all over my fields. What’s that going to do to my carbon?” asks Whitlow. “You can totally game the system.”

Kerston, however, insists that bad practices such as using synthetic fertilizer consistently show up in the data. “If you’re using the wrong tools, we’re going to see it in the outcomes.”

Photography courtesy of Cabriejo Ranch.

But outcomes of the land don’t show the whole picture in a globalized food system. Although feedlots are banned, Land to Market doesn’t yet monitor animal feed. This means that a farmer’s land could be verified to be regenerative, but they could still feed their animals soy and corn sprayed with chemicals from deforested sources. 

That’s why the product itself is not regenerative, only the land on which the animal is raised. 

The Land to Market community is growing at an impressive rate, with five million acres and 1,152 farms being monitored through EOV and “doubling every six months,” according to Kerston. 

ROC currently certifies more than one million acres of land globally, 142 certified farms and nearly 50,000 smallholders (farms between one and four acres) but is limited because producers have to be organic certified first, a process that takes three years. During this transition period, farmers have to adhere to organic regulations without benefiting from the price premium. There are currently 8.3 million acres of organic certified land in the US. 

Newton highlights that exclusivity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Certification programs encourage the high-performing producers to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”

“The role of government and regulation can be to push up the bottom,” says Newton. 

Ultimately, the aim for these certifiers is for all farming to be regenerative. But for the government, brands and consumers to support it, they need to know what that means first. While questions remain around who gets to define regenerative agriculture, at least there are two clear criteria and definitions. That much is a start.

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