October 26, 2024

Spotlight Stories

Spotlight 1 – Civil Eats wonders, if restaurants serve up climate education, will diners pay attention? Read about it, here.

Spotlight 2 – The Guardian says that North Carolina farms face depleted, toxic soil after historic flooding from hurricane Helene. Check out the story, here.

Spotlight 3 – Forbes writes that regenerative farming is a business imperative for multinationals. Check it out, here.

Industry Updates

New research released by McKinsey & Company reveals that global farmers are eyeing sustainable practices, innovative technology implementation, and new yield increasing products to boost profits given wider macro environmental pressure. McKinsey’s 2024 Global Farmers Survey, which gathers perspectives from 4,400 farmers, outlines a cautiously optimistic outlook around the ability to capture increased profits in the years to come. However, expectations on rising profit margins differ widely based on region, with North American and European farmers overall expecting profits this year to be lower (64% and 55% respectively) while farmers in Latin America and India anticipate higher profits over the next two years (58% and 76% respectively), up from 42% and 37% in 2022. [link]

Cattle producers can learn more about the benefits of cover crop grazing and practical management strategies to optimize productivity at the 2024 Cover Crop Grazing Conference in North Platte, NE on November 6. The conference is held by the University of Nebraska - Lincoln and will include a trade show, presentations about annual forages for winter grazing, selecting and using temporary fences, planting dates and forage production, and insights from a producer who has effectively incorporated cover crops into his farming and ranching business. [link]

The Climate Collaborative, in partnership with the UNFI Foundation, has announced the launch of the second cohort of its Regenerative Transition Community of Practice (CoP) in November 2024. The CoP brings together leaders from across the grocery industry—CPGs, retailers, food service providers, distributors, suppliers and funders—to increase their capacity to navigate the complexity of regenerative supply chain transition. The inaugural cohort, launched in November 2023, featured 14 leaders from companies at the forefront of the industry, including NSI, Aurora Organic Dairy, Califia, Clif, Sweetgreen, Wildway, Rumiano Cheese, and UNFI. The program provided an immersive learning experience, helping participants navigate the complexities of organic and regenerative transition with expert facilitation, peer collaboration, and leadership capacity building. [link]

South Dakota State University Extension will host its Managing Soil: Maximizing Profit conference for crop producers and industry professionals in Wagner on December 10, 2024. Managing Soil: Maximizing Profit is an annual conference for crop producers and industry professionals. It provides valuable information for everyone who raises crops, forages and livestock. The main themes of this year's meeting are managing the farming system for soil health and profit, and integrating grazing cattle into the crop production system. [link] 

Purdue University researchers are investigating whether mulching Kura clover, a perennial legume, can provide sufficient nitrogen for corn while enhancing soil organic carbon storage. The innovative system could potentially boost the much-needed supply of soil nitrogen in Midwest corn production, according to Yichao Rui, assistant professor in the Department of Agronomy who’s leading the research on the little-studied effects of Kura clover on corn production. Integrating Kura clover into a continuous corn production system offers a possible path toward both high corn productivity and environmental sustainability. As a unique perennial legume that survives all year long, Kura clover also fixes inert nitrogen gas from the air, converting it into plant-useable forms available to corn. [link]

Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman, the Rockefeller Foundation, and healthy nutrition advocates are on a campaign to get big food and beverage companies and retailers to produce and market healthier products. The group recently sent a letter to the leaders of major, global food and beverage companies urging them to create healthier and more sustainably sourced products and to market so-called junk foods high in salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats, more responsibly. According to the letter, “70% of the world’s processed foods do not fit in a healthy diet.” The result of more people globally, particularly in emerging markets, consuming these diets is a rise in diabetes, heart disease, and cancer – a cost they quantified at US$19 trillion when including both consumer health and environmental/economic-related costs of these foods. The signatories to these principles will be made public at a March summit in Paris. [link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is developing a “research roadmap” to address PFAS in agriculture and prevent so-called “forever chemicals” from contaminating food production. The department’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) held a three-day workshop bringing together more than 150 interagency researchers, universities and state partners to identify key solutions to the emerging threat of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances on farmland. Stakeholders intend to build on the workshop and release documents to communicate solutions to the agricultural research community. New partnerships will also help bring those solutions to life, especially in locations “where PFAS has critical impacts on agriculture,” the ARS said. [link]

Biodiversity is declining more quickly within key protected areas than outside them, according to research that scientists say is a “wake-up call” to global leaders discussing how to stop nature loss at the UN’s Cop16 talks in Colombia. Protecting 30% of land and water for nature by 2030 was one of the key targets settled on by world leaders in a landmark 2022 agreement to save nature – and this month leaders are gathering again at a summit in the Colombian city of Cali to measure progress and negotiate new agreements to stop biodiversity loss. Nearly a quarter of the world’s most biodiversity-rich land is within protected areas, but the quality of these areas is declining faster than it is outside protected areas, according to the analysis by the Natural History Museum (NHM). The authors say there are a few reasons why this might be the case. A lot of protected areas are not designed to preserve the whole ecosystem, but rather certain species that are of interest, which means total “biodiversity intactness” is not a priority. Another reason is that these landscapes could have already been suffering degradation, which is why they were protected in the first place. Researchers say specific local analysis is key to working out why each one is failing. [link]

The Climate Bonds Initiative has announced the launch of its newly developed Agriculture Production (Crop and Livestock) Criteria, now officially available for certification under the Climate Bonds Standard - a labeling scheme for entities, assets and debt instruments. This landmark development represents the culmination of significant collaborative efforts by leading experts and will provide a critical tool for investors to decarbonize one of the most emission-intensive sectors—agriculture production. The Agriculture Production Criteria offer a robust framework to help mitigate crop and livestock emissions, identifying agricultural practices that can align with global sustainability frameworks such as the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework as well as support the Global Methane Pledge. [link]

The environmental costs of hurricanes Helene and Milton are now becoming clear. The storms damaged or destroyed 200,000 commercial beehives—a vital resource for pollinating U.S. crops—in Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. Hundreds of landslides devastated communities throughout Appalachia. And a 40-mile-long toxic red tide hovers just off Florida’s Gulf Coast, threatening fish and humans. Throughout Florida, Milton caused between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion in agricultural losses, according to a preliminary estimate by the Florida Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services, from beef cows to blueberries. [link]

In a perspective paper published on October 23 in the Cell Press journal, Joule, bioengineers propose a radical new method of food production away from "inefficient" photosynthesis towards what they call “electro-agriculture". The method essentially replaces photosynthesis with a solar-powered chemical reaction that more efficiently converts CO2 into an organic molecule that plants would be genetically engineered to “eat.” The researchers estimate that if all food in the US were produced using electro-agriculture, it would reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture by 94%. The method could also be used to grow food in space. [link]

A definition for regenerative agriculture has been created by the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA). Regen ag is one of the buzzwords of the farming industry right now, but discussion of the topic has been hampered by the lack of a clear definition and understanding of what the broad topic entails. The definition is: “Regenerative agriculture is a holistic farming approach that aims to restore and enhance the natural recipients of agro-eco systems while supporting the long-term health and viability of agricultural businesses and communities. The foundation of this farming system is the integrated management of soil health, biodiversity, water resources, human health and climate.” [link]

Conservation efforts benefiting Tennessee’s Duck River and sustainable farming are among 92 projects to receive new funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the department announced Wednesday. Projects supporting conservation in Tennessee will receive more than $66 million of the total $1.5 billion awarded throughout the country through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program. The funding comes from the Farm Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act. The Duck River Watershed Society was awarded $20 million to support stream restoration in the Duck River, which is among the most diverse freshwater rivers in North America. Agricenter International, a Shelby County-based nonprofit focusing on agricultural research and environmental conservation, will steward almost $25 million to support the “Middle Tennessee Field and Forest Partnership.” The MidSouth Development District, an organization that works in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, will receive a little over $21 million to fund the MidSouth Regional Conservation Partnership Program. [link]

The University of California, Riverside, has been awarded $1.5 million in grants from the California Department of Food and Agriculture to lead three interconnected projects aimed at transforming California’s specialty crop farming. The initiatives focus on youth engagement, sustainable waste management, and advanced agricultural technologies. Each of the three projects has received about $498,000 in funding and will integrate education, research, and practical application to help shape a sustainable future for global food systems. [link]

In Case You Missed It…

In late August, farmers in six Asian countries successfully increased their rice yields using nuclear-derived climate-smart agricultural practices with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. See more, here.