August 3, 2024

Spotlight Stories

Spotlight 1 – Bloomberg writes that U.S. farmers want to adapt to climate change, but Federal Crop Insurance programs won’t let them. Check out the story, here.

Spotlight 2 – Vermont’s WCAX says that local farmers are seeking out new flood mitigation strategies…to include purposely growing weeds. Check it out, here.

Spotlight 3 – Farm Progress reports that high land prices are squeezing farmers, large and small. Give it a read, here.

Industry Updates

Verra launched its new ABACUS market label, a new seal of approval indicating exceptional quality for carbon credits generated by ecosystem restoration and reforestation projects that go above and beyond what is required under Verra’s methodology for Afforestation, Reforestation, and Revegetation (ARR) projects, known as VM0047, in the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program. Verra developed the ABACUS label with input from a consensus-based working group that included experts from Amazon, Carbon Direct, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Pachama, TerraCarbon, Stanford University, SCS Global Services, and the University of California, Berkeley. Ecosystem restoration projects wishing to apply the ABACUS label to their carbon credits must go above and beyond VM0047 by matching and observing control areas to measure project additionality in real time, publishing all inventory measurements and disturbance monitorings annually, restoring to diverse ecologically appropriate ecosystems, and maintaining or enhancing agricultural production in the project area and surrounding landscape. [link]

UFA Co-operative Ltd. and MyLand, a pioneering soil health company based in Phoenix, AZ, announced a three-year collaboration on a commercial pilot with various growers in Alberta to create responsible farming practices and soil health management, leveraging advanced microbial technologies to benefit farmers and the environment. The commercial pilot will be integrating MyLand’s proprietary technology and soil as a service to enhance the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the soil. This integration aims to result in enhanced soil fertility, optimized crop yields and the promotion of eco-friendly farming practices through the MyLand service. [link]

Nutrien has joined the Rice Stewardship Program, committing $1 million over four years to encourage sustainable rice production in six U.S. states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas, and California. For over a decade, the Rice Stewardship Program has helped growers adopt and improve sustainable agricultural practices on over 1,000 rice farms, collectively totaling over 800,000 acres. Jeff Tarsi, president of Global Retail for Nutrien, said the company has a wide selection of proprietary products that will work hand in hand to promote the conservation and sustainability efforts of the Rice Stewardship Program. [link]

Ralston Family Farms, a women-owned rice farming company, has achieved certification from Regenified, a leading third-party regenerative verification and supply chain solution company. Demonstrating its commitment to regenerative agriculture practices across all 6,000 acres, the Arkansas family farm works diligently to improve soil health, enhance biodiversity, water conservation, and foster ecosystem resiliency through regenerative practices such as cover cropping, crop rotation, and no-till planting. As demand for transparency in food sources continues to rise, achieving regenerative certification — marked on the shelf by the Certified Regenified seal — will help assure consumers that the rice they purchase from Ralston Family Farms supports a movement to drive positive change for the planet. [link]

An increased use of agricultural drainage tile is one reason a 2025 deadline to reduce nitrate and phosphorus entering the Gulf of Mexico by 20% is unlikely. Drainage tile, a system farmers use to drain water from croplands, is also a contributor to the historic loss of up to about 100 million acres of wetlands in the U.S., researchers say. This hidden underground pipe system stretches over more than 50 million acres in the U.S., with about 84% of those acres in the upper Midwest. It has become essential to modern agriculture, but it brings devastating environmental consequences. About 98% of drainage tile in the nation is located in watersheds with excess nitrate and phosphorus levels. Tile changes the natural movement of water, serving as a conduit for pollution that is flushed quickly into nearby waterways. [link]

A $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will provide a substantial boost to an artificial intelligence project led by the University of Hawaii at Manoa that can assist those in Hawaii’s agricultural sector to use water sustainably. The variable nature of Hawaii’s seasons often leaves crops without adequate water throughout the year, despite abundant rainfall in some areas. The project will incorporate data from a network of weather stations across the islands feeding it into an innovative AI-enhanced irrigation management system. Farmers in Hawaii would be able to effectively and efficiently reduce irrigation water and enhance yields by adopting an AI-enhanced irrigation scheduling software tool, CropManage. [link]

Two South Dakota State University researchers are partnering with 20 eastern South Dakota farming operations and GEVO to pursue practices that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase farm profitability. In these projects, Moradi is using statistical models and machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques to  convert information from satellites and drones, combines, soil test results, weather reports, soil surveys and farmer practices into recommendations that will reduce costs and improve profitability. SDSU has two other academic partners in what overall is a $30-million project financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities program. Iowa State and Colorado State have similar projects underway. [link]

Applied Carbon, a technology company designing automated biochar production machines that convert in-field agricultural crop waste into biochar, announced that it has raised a $21.5 million Series A round. The funding round was led by TO VC, with participation from Congruent Ventures, Grantham Foundation, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, S2G Ventures, Overture.vc, Wireframe Ventures, Autodesk Foundation, Anglo American, Susquehanna Foundation, US Endowment for Forestry and Communities, TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good, and Elemental Excelerator. The funding will be used to deploy a fleet of biochar machines across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, delivering high durability carbon removal and agricultural services. [link]

In its latest Market Impact Report, retailer Whole Foods highlighted its support for sustainable farming and regenerative agriculture through both legislative and financial means. The U.S.-based retailer highlighted that over 57% of fresh produce sold at its stores was organic and that 154 products were labeled as regenerative organic certified. In 2023, the Whole Foods Market Foundation loaned more than $7 million to partners and donated more than $6 million to nonprofit organizations through "community giving programs." As for its legislative and policy support, Whole Foods clearly states that it is "actively engaging" in the 2023-24 farm bill to drive more sustainable agriculture and has worked with various farming and organic research coalitions and foundations to endorse different legislation. [link]

A report from University of California-Riverside (UCR) researchers calls for urgent and innovative measures to address declining water availability due to climate change. In a UCR release the researchers said California should take urgent and bold measures to adapt its $59 billion agriculture sector to climate change as the amount of water available for crops declines. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the report provides a roadmap for more water capture, storage, and distribution systems that align with climate projections and ecosystems. It further explores how runoff and groundwater can be reused as it generally flows from mountainsides to coastal lands. [link]

Landowners and landholders of Appalachian Ohio counties interested in agroforestry practices such as forest farming and silvopasture, and other methods of sustainable forestry management can get a free site visit through Rural Action’s Sustainable Forestry Program. The goal of this project is to help landowners develop goals that support the implementation of agroforestry practices and sustainable forest management. During the site visit process, landowners will have the opportunity to walk their property with Rural Action Sustainable Forestry Staff to evaluate potential agroforestry and silvopasture sites, along with opportunities for sustainable forest management such as tree plantings and invasive species removal. Rural Action is a regional community development organization working with members and community leaders on a range of quality of life, environmental, and economic projects across rural Appalachian Ohio. [link]

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) organized a meeting in Chile to promote an integrative perspective for a systemic approach to the health of people, animals, plants, and the environment. The discussion was organized around the idea of "One Health", which is an integrated unifying approach that seeks to balance and sustainably optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems, safeguarding the interrelation of activities related to sustainable agriculture, animal, plant, forest, and aquatic health, food safety, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), nutrition, and livelihoods. In this discussion, specialists from livestock, aquaculture, agriculture, and forestry discussed the opportunities and challenges of addressing agrifood systems in a coordinated manner with a focus on sustainability, intergenerational responsibility, and the protection of natural resources and the environment. [link]

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the University of Chicago’s Development Innovation Lab (DIL) have signed a knowledge exchange arrangement that facilitates the scale-up of innovations to reduce the impacts of climate change on agriculture and promote climate adaptation in low- and middle-income countries in Asia and the Pacific. The overall objective is to inform the scale-up of climate-resilient, evidence-based investments in the field of agriculture; improve farmers’ access to accurate climate services and weather forecasts; and raise global awareness on digital innovation in climate services to improve food security. [link]

In Case You Missed It…

This time last year, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released draft guidance of the federal government’s first-ever recommendations for U.S. government agencies on accounting for ecosystem services in benefit-cost analysis when evaluating investment decisions. See more, here.