Op-ed by Kerry Tucker and Teresa Siles

Pressure to address sustainability and nutrition under a common framework is picking up steam as global stakeholders grapple with what it will take to sustainably produce enough food for healthy eating patterns given global population projections 30 years out.

This move toward sustainable nutrition emerged as a priority trend in the 2019 Food Foresight report amid calls for agriculture to improve production practices across an array of issues from water conservation and soil health, to farm labor conditions, treatment of livestock and GHG emissions. 

Critics claim the current food system needs an overhaul and although they are quick to acknowledge the lack of easy sustainable solutions, the shift to more plant-based foods and limiting animal-sourced foods are often cited as the low-hanging fruit to begin balancing nutrition and sustainability. 

“The old metaphor ‘you are what you eat,’ is on a new course of ‘you and your planet are what you eat,’ ”said Jeff Dlott, a long time Food Foresight panelist and president of SureHarvest, which helps food and agricultural partners define, measure and meet their sustainability goals. 

The questions around sustainability and nutrition are often different in countries like the U.S. than those posed on a global scale.  In the U.S., we tend to talk about sustainable nutrition from a perspective of affluence where questions center around whether consumers will pay for foods grown more sustainably. Often through a different lens, we then look at health, nutrition and the growing prevalence of non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, related to unhealthy diets. At the same time, global hunger and undernutrition persist and there are high demands for foods rich in essential nutrients. 

Policymakers in countries around the world are formalizing dietary guidelines to include sustainability considerations. As a result, some in nutrition sciences are concerned about the nutritional risks of limiting nutrient-dense foods, like milk and dairy foods, from vulnerable populations who need them most. 

“Encouraging consumption of plant-based foods, lean animal-protein sources and nutrient-dense milk and dairy foods can help close the nutrient gap that exists with people all over the world,” says Carl Keen, nutrition professor at University of California, Davis and founding Food Foresight panelist. 

Thecorporate sector – with names like Nestle USA, Mars Inc and Danone North America to name a few – is doubling down on sustainability programs, often based on the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals. Industry groups also have sustainability at the top of their priorities list. The Almond Board of California, Dairy Cares, National Dairy Council, US Roundtable for Sustainable Beef and the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform are just a few examples.  Farmers and ranchers are also investing in best practices and tools like precision agriculture and evolving technologies to do more with less. 

In California, under the leadership of Karen Ross, California Department of Food and Agriculture secretary, the Climate Smart Agriculture program is incentivizing the transformation of current production practices.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate the critical role our natural lands, forests and farms and ranches can play in drawing down carbon while providing food, fiber and timber, and enhancing biodiversity and open space for recreation and tourism,” said Ross.

While substantial efforts are underway by many in agriculture to look holistically at both nutrition and sustainability, more work is yet to be done. The wise would do more than take note, they would take action. First and foremost, every grower, processor or producer of agriculture must understand the impact of their products on environmental, economic and social sustainability. From there, efforts should be taken to feed a growing population healthfully and without putting our natural resources at further risk and negatively impacting climate change and the environment. Innovative thinking, processes, technologies and multi-sector collaboration will be tools of the trade. Solutions lie with next-generation agricultural systems that align with people, planet, and society. The reward is great with impacts not only to companies, brands, customers and consumers, but to society at large, including a brighter, healthier and more sustainable future for all. 

Kerry Tucker is the founder of Food Foresight, a trends intelligence collaboration between Nuffer, Smith, Tucker and the California Institute of Agricultural Research at University of California, Davis. Teresa Siles is co-author of Food Foresight and managing director at Nuffer, Smith, Tucker Inc., a strategic planning and public relations firm headquartered in San Diego.

Link to article on Agri-Pulse web site

From Ag Alert

By Dave Kranz

To commemorate the California Farm Bureau Federation’s 50th anniversary, in 1969, the CFBF publication Farm Bureau Monthly set out on a bold project: predicting what agriculture would be like 50 years in the future.

The publication consulted experts from many sectors and aspects of agriculture, publishing more than two-dozen articles in five consecutive issues. Their predictions involved not just how farmers would farm, but how people would live their lives, buy food and communicate.

They may or may not have expected someone to dig out their forecasts 50 years later but here’s the thing: Many of their predictions turned out to be prescient.

Sure, there was some “Jetsons”-style speculation. A professor of family life predicted we’d be eating off of plastic dishes that after use would be placed in a machine that would clean, melt and remold new dishes; that closets would be outfitted with devices to clean clothes by sonic waves; and that giant hovercraft would carry passengers and freight.

But a representative of Safeway Stores predicted people would shop by video phone, with charges to the shopper’s credit card automatically deducted from the bank account. A University of California agricultural scientist accurately foresaw an upcoming era of instant communication.

When it came to predicting what 21st century farming would look like, many writers focused on the promise of computers and mechanization.

“Farming will be a miracle of mechanization, chemistry and management skills,” wrote Ralph Bunje of the California Canning Peach Association.

Other writers tempered their expectations of how machines would change agriculture.

An American Farm Bureau Federation policy specialist, Matt Triggs, believed new machinery and equipment would perform an increasing proportion of total work, “but for a long time, human labor, even at much higher than existing wage rates, will be cheaper and more satisfactory than machine operation for a few agricultural operations.”

A subtropical horticulturalist for the UC Extension Service, Robert G. Platt, said he expected citrus mechanization and automation to come with future plantings, but “whether complete mechanization of harvesting ever becomes a reality remains to be seen.”

Platt accurately foresaw an “inevitable” reduction in Southern California citrus acreage as the region urbanized, and other writers also warned of forces they expected to challenge agricultural production.

An extension economist at UC Riverside, William W. Wood Jr., said if 1969 land-use trends continued, there would be “virtually no prime land available for agricultural production 50 years hence.”

Competition for water would also intensify, according to AFBF natural resources director Clifford G. McIntire: “Agriculture must be vigilant or it will be outbid, outmaneuvered or out-legislated in the competition for present and future water resources.”

The peach association’s Bunje expected additional oversight: “Government will regulate the use of chemicals, water drainage and the environmental operation of farming. Farming will be governed by laws relating to natural resources.”

Farmers and ranchers would also need to adapt to new marketing realities, wrote UC agricultural economist G. Alvin Carpenter: “Farmers, as well as their marketing agencies, must either act to shape the future, or they must defensively react as they rebound from crisis to crisis.”

The livestock business in 1969 faced a variety of problems, UC Extension animal scientist J.T. Elings wrote: land prices, taxes, diseases and imports, plus “imitation milk and ice cream, soybean hamburger, plastics instead of leather, synthetic fibers instead of wool.”

“Whether the animal industry survives will depend on its ability to change—to adapt,” Elings wrote.

That adaptation would depend on versatile, well-educated farmers and ranchers, according to J.J. Miller of the Agricultural Producers Labor Committee.

“By 2000 the farmer will have developed the talents of a Renaissance man of many parts to succeed in the agricultural arena,” Miller wrote. “More than a smattering of knowledge in the fields of finance, chemistry, horticulture, meteorology, business management, psychology, engineering, to name a few, will have to be at his command.”

CFBF leaders also wrote about the future of the Farm Bureau organization—we’ll share their thoughts in a subsequent edition of Ag Alert^®—and UC Vice President J.B. Kendrick Jr. said Farm Bureau should take pride in how agriculture had advanced during its first 50 years.

“When this organization celebrates its centennial anniversary,” Kendrick wrote, “I am certain that the accomplishments of the second half of the century will be even more exciting, more unbelievable, and more satisfying to mankind.”

Link to story on Ag Alert website

A total of seven California horses have tested positive in recent weeks for West Nile Virus, with six of the cases in the Central Valley and one in Riverside County. Two of the horses were euthanized due to the severity of their symptoms.

Horse owners are reminded to have their animals vaccinated to make sure they are maximizing protection against the disease. And once vaccinations occur, horse owners should be checking regularly with their veterinarians to make sure they stay current.

Californians can also do their part to prevent the disease by managing mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus. Here are some tips:

• Draining unnecessary standing water found in wheelbarrows, tires, etc.
• Cleaning water containers at least weekly (i.e., bird baths, plant saucers)
• Scheduling pasture irrigation to minimize standing water
• Keeping swimming pools optimally chlorinated and draining water from pool covers
• Stocking of water tanks with fish that consume mosquito larvae (Contact local mosquito control for assistance) or use mosquito “dunk” available at hardware stores.

It’s important to remember that mosquitoes become infected with the virus when they feed on infected birds. Mosquitoes then spread the virus to horses.  Horses are a dead-end host and do not spread the virus to other horses or humans. For more information on West Nile Virus, please visit this link.

Note – CDFA’s Healthy Soils Program is working closely with UC Davis researchers. Secretary Karen Ross is quoted in this article.

By Kat Kerlin

By moving beyond the surface level and literally digging deep, scientists at the University of California, Davis, found that compost is a key to storing carbon in semi-arid cropland soils, a strategy for offsetting CO₂ emissions.

For their 19-year study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, scientists dug roughly 6 feet down to compare soil carbon changes in conventional, cover-cropped and compost-added plots of corn-tomato and wheat-fallow cropping systems. They found that:

• Conventional soils neither release nor store much carbon.
• Cover cropping conventional soils, while increasing carbon in the surface 12 inches, can actually lose significant amounts of carbon below that depth.
• When both compost and cover crops were added in the organic-certified system, soil carbon content increased 12.6 percent over the length of the study, or about 0.7 percent annually. That’s more than the international “4 per 1000” initiative, which calls for an increase of 0.4 percent of soil carbon per year. It is also far more carbon stored than would be calculated if only the surface layer was measured.

“If we take the time and energy to look a little deeper, there’s always more to the story,” said co-first author Jessica Chiartas, a Ph.D. student with the UC Davis land, air and water resources department. “The soil represents a huge mass of natural resource under our feet. If we’re only thinking about farming the surface of it, we’re missing an opportunity. Carbon is like a second crop.”

Cover crops, compost and the carbon market

Nationwide, many studies that investigated carbon change in the top foot of soil found that cover-cropped systems store carbon. The UC Davis study also found gains in the surface but, deeper down, enough carbon was released from cover-cropped systems that it resulted in an overall net loss.

“There are other benefits to cover crops that farmers may still enjoy, but in our systems, storing carbon is not necessarily one of them,” said co-first author Nicole Tautges, a cropping systems scientist with the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute. “We’d make more progress by incentivizing compost.”

The researchers did not compare composted systems without cover crops, but suspect the compost helped sequester carbon despite the cover crop, a notion they intend to investigate further.

Microbes need a balanced diet

Carbon has to filter through soil microbes to create stabilized forms of carbon in soil. Compost provides not only carbon but also additional vital nutrients for those microbes to function effectively.

“One reason we keep losing organic matter from soils is that our focus is on feeding the plant, and we forget the needs of others who provide important services in soil like building organic carbon,” said senior author Kate Scow, director of the UC Davis Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility. “We need to feed the soil, too”.

Having a balanced diet can make the difference between how much carbon stays in the soil versus how much is released as carbon dioxide, Scow said.

When their diet is out of balance, microbes seek out missing nutrients, mining them from existing soil organic matter. This results in the loss rather than gain of carbon. The authors think that deep in the soil, cover-crop roots provided carbon but not the other nutrients needed to stabilize it.

Sequestering carbon in arid climates

The study was conducted in California’s northern Central Valley at the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility, part of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis. The results indicate that semi-arid Mediterranean climates like the study site may be capable of storing far more carbon in the soil than once thought possible.

“This work coming out of Russell Ranch at UC Davis is very timely as the state invests in programs to sequester carbon in soils,” said Secretary Karen Ross of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “Carbon sequestration in soils through the addition of compost is a key practice in our Healthy Soils Program and we are delighted that the science and policy efforts are aligning and supporting each other.”

The results also indicate an opportunity for compost to provide multiple, interconnected benefits to farmers and the environment by improving soils, offsetting greenhouse gas emissions, and transforming animal and food wastes into a valuable product the soil needs.

Link to article on UC Davis web site

Note – In July CDFA’s Healthy Stores Refrigeration Grant Program awarded more than $2.8 million in grants to 28 small businesses, community-based organizations, and local governments to fund energy-efficient refrigeration units for areas with low access to full-service grocery stores.

By Julia Mitric

Imagine hearing that familiar summer song and looking up to see a truck rolling up your block. Kids flag it down, only to find vegetables.

A mobile farm stand truck might be less exciting to kids than an ice cream truck, but the prospect of getting one in West Sacramento has proponents of urban agriculture pretty pumped up.

Here’s how it would work. Several urban farmers in West Sacramento would sell their produce through a refrigerated truck that stops in neighborhoods where residents face barriers when it comes to affording fresh, local produce.

Several areas of West Sacramento are designated as food deserts by the USDA. 

The project is Sara Bernal’s brainchild. She’s the program manager of West Sacramento Urban Farms, which is part of the Center For Land-Based Learning, a non-profit based in Winters that runs farmer training programs. Bernal oversees 10 start-up farmers working on “incubator” plots that were formerly empty lots. 

Bernal noticed mobile farm stand trucks popping up in Seattle, Boston and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Many were short-lived because they weren’t financially sustainable, she said. 

“All these mobile trucks are trying to target low-income communities that don’t actually have the income to pay for fresh, organic produce,” says Bernal. “And then the farmers need to cover the cost of production.”

She plans to tackle the financial piece from the outset by seeking outside support from public and private funders. CalFresh recipients will be able to use their EBT cards at the mobile farm stand and there will be market match incentives to boost their purchasing power, Bernal said.

Those financial subsidies will be necessary, especially at the beginning of the project, says Davida Douglas, operations manager with Alchemist CDC, a Sacramento non-profit that runs several programs focused on improving food access. 

“Realistically, you have to look at the bigger picture and what is the social cost to our society if we have families that aren’t able to eat a healthy diet,” says Douglas. “We have medical costs for our society … reduced success for kids in school … missed days from work due to diet-related illnesses. So, you’re looking at the big picture.”

Bernal applied and won an $83,000 refrigeration grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture to purchase the custom-designed truck, which will be built in Canada by a company that specializes in this type of vehicle. 

“It has refrigeration units inside — the kind of doors you’d see at a corner store — [and] a handwashing sink, an area [to] cut samples. In front of the truck you [can] put your produce on display.”

Bernal points out that the vehicle has no generator, so there won’t be emissions while the truck is parked and doing sales, she said. Its refrigeration units work off two food-grade, commercial ice packs that can be frozen in a deep-chest home freezer, according to Frederic Laforge, who designs the trucks. The vehicle being built for West Sacramento won’t hit the streets until next summer, Bernal said.

“That will [give] us time to build some partnerships within West Sacramento to see where are the most effective places to park the truck,” Bernals says. “You know, where are families already going, so they don’t have to add an additional stop to their lives to get produce.”

That truck could pop up during pick-up time at local schools, the West Sacramento Recreation Center, community health clinics and faith-based institutions. Bernal says the project will use existing maps of West Sacramento food deserts and tap the knowledge of community health groups to pinpoint the most effective places to stop.

Supporting the project is also a way to bolster “start-up farmers that are looking to scale up their small farm businesses,” says Davida Douglas of Alchemist CDC.

“It’s these small farms that will help support the economic vitality of our region,” Douglas says “And I think that’s worth investing in — and [it’s] worth looking at that true cost when we look at is this a good program and will it be successful.”

Link to story on Capital Public Radio website

UC Riverside news release

A new species of gigantic tumbleweed once predicted to go extinct is not only here to stay — it’s likely to expand its territory.

The species, Salsola ryanii, is significantly larger than either of its parent plants, which can grow up to 6 feet tall. A new study from UC Riverside supports the theory that the new tumbleweed grows more vigorously because it is a hybrid with doubled pairs of its parents’ chromosomes.

Findings from the study are detailed in a new paper published in the Oxford University-produced journal AoB Plants.

“Salsola ryanii is a nasty species replacing other nasty species of tumbleweed in the U.S.,” said study co-author Norman Ellstrand, UCR Distinguished Professor of Genetics. “It’s healthier than earlier versions, and now we know why.”

Humans are diploid organisms, with one set of chromosomes donated by the mother and one set from the father. Sometimes a mother’s egg contains two sets of chromosomes rather than just the one she is meant to pass on. If this egg is fertilized, the offspring would be triploid, with three sets of chromosomes. Most humans do not survive this.

Plants with parents closely related enough to mate can produce triploid offspring that survive but are unable to reproduce themselves. However, a hybrid plant that manages to get two copies from the mother and two from the father will be fertile. Some species can have more than four sets of chromosomes. They can even have “hexaploidy,” with six sets of chromosomes.

Scientists have long assumed there must be some kind of evolutionary advantage to polyploidy, the term for hybrids that have multiple sets of chromosomes, since it poses some immediate difficulties for the new hybrids.

“Typically, when something is new, and it’s the only one of its kind, that’s a disadvantage. There’s nobody exactly like you to mate with,” said study co-author Shana Welles, the graduate student in Ellstrand’s laboratory that conducted the study as part of her Ph.D. research. She is now a postdoctoral fellow at Chapman University.

The advantage to having multiple sets of chromosomes, according to the study, is that the hybrid plant grows more vigorously than either of its parents. This has been suggested as the reason polyploidy is so common in plants. However, it has not, until now, been demonstrated experimentally.

Polyploidy is associated with our favorite crops; domesticated peanuts have four sets of chromosomes, and the wheat we eat has six.

Though tumbleweeds are often seen as symbols of America’s old West, they are also invasive plants that cause traffic accidents, damage agricultural operations, and cause millions in property damage every year. Last year, the desert town of Victorville, California, was buried in them, piling up to the second story of some homes.

Currently, Salsola ryanii has a relatively small but expanding geographic range. Since the new study determined it is even more vigorous than its progenitors, which are invasive in 48 states, Welles said it is likely to continue to expand its range. Additionally, Welles said climate change could increase its territory takeover.

Though this tumbleweed is an annual, it tends to grow on the later side of winter.

“It’s one of the only things that’s still green in late summer,” Welles said. “They may be well positioned to take advantage of summer rains if climate changes make those more prevalent.”

Given its potential for damage, the knowledge now available about Salsola ryanii could be important for helping to suppress it, and Ellstrand believes that is what should happen before it takes over.

“An ounce of prevention is a pound of cure,” he said.

By Tom Vilsack and Dan Glickman

Note -Tom Vilsack is former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (2009-2017), and currently the president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council. Dan Glickman is former Secretary of Agriculture (1995-2001), and currently the executive director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program.

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” — Native American proverb

Never have these words carried more urgency as we are faced with the threats posed by climate change.

For U.S. farmers and ranchers, who are on the front lines in the battle against climate change, tremendous challenges lie ahead: how to nourish an unprecedented population while protecting and enhancing the world in which we all live.

A global population expected to hit 9 billion by 2050, requiring roughly 70% more food than what is currently produced.

The shrinking of farmable land. According to American Farmland Trust, cropland in the United States disappears at a rate of 175 acres per hour due to business and residential expansion.

And all in the face of climate change. The U.S. Global Change Research Program reports that the effects of climate change are already being felt. Increases in average temperature, extreme heat conditions, heavy rainfall, droughts and extreme weather events contribute to excessive runoff, flooding, and soil erosion, loss of soil carbon and reduce the availability and quality of water.

The next 30 years promise to be the most important in the history of agriculture.

The U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) has developed a short film that underscores the important role agriculture plays in combating climate change. The film, “30 Harvests,” documents the challenges two farmers face while embracing the opportunity to positively impact the environment. Farmers are truly the change agents that will help feed an unprecedented population while solving for climate change.

However, in order to achieve a truly sustainable food system, the entire food value chain must work together. We need a drumbeat of contagious collaboration.

This partnership has already begun. Recently, leaders across agriculture, technology, finance and investment, and food companies gathered at a 1,400-acre farm outside Washington, D.C. for the Honor the Harvest Forum, sponsored by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance and the Aspen Institute. The gathering featured working sessions among stakeholders that centered around sustainable food systems.

Additionally, we need all the creative minds to address this issue through science. USFRA is partnering with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) to bring science to the table that addresses climate change head on. Studies reveal that agricultural soils have the capacity to draw down and store carbon through the photosynthesis process, farmers and ranchers continually steward water use and quality, and greenhouse emissions are being reduced in animal production through truly inventive ways. Continual improvement in production practices through science has the potential to stabilize and reverse common climate trends.

By focusing on the capacity of carbon sequestration of agricultural lands, and new emission reduction technologies already being used on farms and ranches, U.S. farmers and ranchers can be the first to reduce emissions connected to agriculture and eventually get to a net zero or better.

This is an opportunity we have now to ensure that families that are connected and rooted to the land, whether small farms or production agriculture operations, are in a position to say to their children and grandchildren, yes, you do have an amazing opportunity and future in agriculture. Every farmer, every acre, and every voice is needed to plant the future for the next generation.

Link to story in the Des Moines Register