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Want to bridge the urban-rural divide? Start by learning about family farms.
Ted Genoways, a journalist and fourth-generation Nebraskan, talks about the year he spent chronicling a Nebraskan family farm and what the rest of us can learn from his experience.
Ted Genoways wants to challenge your thinking about the people growing your food. Counter to popular wisdom, not all farmers are either 1) selling organic tomatoes at your local farmers’ market or 2) running massive corporate operations.
In his new book, This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm, Genoways chronicles the trials and tribulations of a third kind of farmer. Rick Hammond grows conventional corn and soy and raises cattle in Eastern Nebraska with his daughter and son-in-law. He’s not your typical 2017 farm hero, but, as Genoways artfully illustrates, Hammond is working hard to pass his farm on to the next generation against the odds. And the myriad challenges family farms like his face—from unstable prices to a diminishing water supply and increasingly erratic weather—are worth our attention.
As Genoways wrote recently in a reflection on the book, a “sea change in consumer habits” has arisen over the last two decades. But, he began to ask, “Is all of this really helping family farmers? How do they feel about a food movement that lionizes ideologically-driven operations like Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farms, the pastoral curmudgeon made famous in Omnivore’s Dilemma, and vilifies generations-old operations in the middle of the country, where many farmers have no choice but to raise commodity grains—principally corn and soybeans—just to keep their families afloat?”
Civil Eats talked to Genoways recently about the Hammonds, the changing face of rural America, and the role that in-depth local reporting can play in holding agribusiness interests accountable to their communities.
Maybe we should start by talking about the term “family farm.” Can you talk about how you define that?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) classifies something like 97 percent of American farms as “family farms.” And so in that context the term essentially means that the person who owns the farm has a family. And many large operations that I’ve dealt with over the years that started out family-owned have grown to the point where the families that own them may only rarely actually visit the land.
So, when I talk about family farmers, I really mean in the old-fashioned sense—a nuclear family that is living on a farm that they operate with little or no hired assistance. Typically, they are doing it on land that they have some sort of longstanding connection to. And everything is about protecting and sustaining the land at the center of that universe. That’s something that is—at this point in history, especially in the Midwest—quite unusual.
I was interested in how the real family farmers are hanging on. And in how they’re doing so at a point when, for almost a generation, there’s been an enormous amount of pressure to either go corporate or go do something else.
Can you say more about what “going corporate” looks like?
It has to do with the size of the operation. [It means] acquiring enough land that you start to have some economies of scale, but you also then require employees. I have reported on operations that describe themselves as “family farms,” but have operations that are spread across seven states. They have hundreds of employees and have operations that include row crops, feed mills, hog barns, and packing houses.
So closer to a vertical model?
That’s right. There is an attempt to vertically integrate and to diversify across regions to insulate [themselves] against weather and some of the vagaries of the local markets. And essentially you’re getting large enough that you have some protection. And that, to my mind, is where the corporation really comes from.
I understand that instinct. I’m not as knee jerk anti-industrialized agriculture as some people are. I certainly have many reservations about what tends to come along with it. But I don’t feel any particular romance for the difficulties or the risks that come from trying to operate a small farm. And that’s exactly why I wanted to focus on those kinds of farmers and in the context of what has happened with the food system itself for over a generation now—as everything is pushing toward that industrial model—but I also wanted to look at the kinds of pressures that have been exerted over the last decade by people like us who have some questions about that industrial model and some reservations about it. And I think many farmers [see those questions] as personal critiques and register them as yet another threat.
Let’s back up and talk about the larger urban-rural divide that has been made especially clear since the election. Do you hope This Blessed Earth can bridge any of that divide?
My interest is in trying to make sure that when we talk about how to reform the food system we’re not doing so in a vacuum or based on some sort of received wisdom about what’s happening on the farm.
I also think that Nebraska, where the book is set and where I live and have had family for generations, is an interesting example of what happens in many of these Great Plains and Midwestern states, which tended to be settled along the rivers. All of the population clusters on one side and then the rest of the state is left open for agriculture, which historically got brought in to those distribution centers along the rivers. But what that means is that every one of these states has major metropolitan areas on one side of the state and then vast areas that are lightly populated on the other. And, over the last 40 years, those rural areas have become less and less populated. And so within each state there ends up being two different states.
And I have certainly seen over my lifetime this intense and growing suspicion of the urban part of [Nebraska] from the people who are in the rural parts of the state. And I think some of that is exacerbated by the loss of small-town newspapers and the consolidation of schools—losing that individual identity and the sense of community and conversation that took place in those local venues. And it’s all been replaced by talk radio on the AM radio in the machine shop, or by Fox News, which is on TV at home and in the coffee shop.
I think many of these more isolated rural places have ended up feeling more connected to a national politics and a national rhetorical debate than they are connected to people who may only live a couple of hours away from them but in a [more urban] environment. I would also hope that [this book] encourages people in urban areas to recognize some of the work that they need to do to reach out to rural areas and include them in some of the progress that has occurred in cities and not leave rural areas behind.
As you mentioned, there has been a lot of critique of conventional farming and farmers who sell into the commodity market in recent years. And there are people in the Midwest now growing organic and non-GMO foods—either out or conviction or because of consumer demand—but it’s not anywhere near as simple as just deciding to change. Can you say a little bit about that challenge?
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the real mistakes of the food movement has been to assume that we can reshape the food system simply by buying non-GMO corn chips or Animal Welfare Approved chicken. The reality is that if there’s not a mass movement among consumers, all that that really does is create niche markets. And niche markets may help some farmers who have the means, the know-how, and the ambition. But, right now, the premium that can be commanded for those things is not adequate to offset the risks and expenses.
For people who have an emotional connection to the farm, their first commitment is to their family and to their legacy. And from there whatever they can do to produce something that they feel good about being sent out to the consumer, they definitely want to do it.
But I think it’s important to recognize that when somebody says, “Why not go organic?” It is no different than any of us being asked: “Why don’t you do everything in your life and in your profession in a different way than you’ve always done it?”
And even when that may be good advice or good for us collectively, trying to make that change individually is hugely challenging. And the way you can get that to happen is not by [making different consumer choices]. The only way that that’s really going to happen is by changing the incentives at the macro level and that’s about government regulation, and the incentive we build in to government programs.
And so if people care enough to pay extra for non-GMO or organic food, then they should be looking into which candidates would actually push for those sorts of changes and put their support behind them. At a moment when the next farm bill is being crafted and the USDA is being staffed with people who have little to no expertise, it’s really critical to recognize that these things don’t take care of themselves.
Do you want to talk about the Keystone XL pipeline—and the role that it played in the year you spent on the Hammonds’ farm? At a time when many farmers in that part of the country seem to feel more competition that neighborliness, do you think the pipeline helped bring them together?
I saw places where were families and neighbors were divided based on their feelings about the pipeline. But I also saw this group of farmers and ranchers from up in the Sandhills who have banded together to be the wrench in the works for close to a decade now. And that is just remarkable to me. They’ve been holding out long enough that now TransCanada is saying, “Well we’re not sure that the numbers work out for building this pipeline in the way that we had originally proposed any more.” And with another project that they looked at as an alternative—the Energy East Pipeline, which would have gone across southern Canada—they’ve said that they fear that they would encounter the exact same resistance trying to build that project.
Rick Hammond really thought that there was no choice but to sign the initial easement agreement with Trans-Canada and instantly regretted it. And then Trans-Canada moved the route and said, “we’re no longer going to build the pipeline across this piece of land.” But Rick farms another piece of land that belongs to his family members. And they refused to sign, and they have held out on allowing any construction on that land. In fact, that’s the land where they erected a solar-powered barn that is directly in the path of the pipeline.
Rick Hammond has family in place—his daughter Meghan and her husband Kyle—to take over the operation. But that’s unusual these days. Will you talk about what you see the next few decades looking like in Middle America for farmers?
It’s a really bleak outlook in terms of that very issue. Succession is the thing that you hear all the ag groups worrying about the most, because they have the perspective to see that the farmers are advancing in age and at the same time land values, overhead costs, and equipment costs are going up.… So the only people who can really get into farming as young people these days are those who are inheriting land, homes, and equipment. And I have a hard time understanding the young farmers who commit to staying on the land. Because even a small operation is now worth millions of dollars in land and equipment and everything that goes with it. To be presented as a young person with the choice of, “you can sell this off for millions of dollars and go do whatever you want with your life….”
Or you can make $25,000 a year if you’re lucky.
Right. And you’ll be working 12-15 hours a day. And [the ag landscape] is going to be constantly changing. The technology is going to be new. The climate is going to be new. It’s going to be a daily struggle. And the people who are inheriting operations for the most part have parents and even grandparents who are right on top of them—sometimes on the same property.
And they have strong opinions.
Yes, they do. And they don’t keep them to themselves very often.
To make the choice to stay and do all that work for all of that risk and to have all of that family pressure? I’m not sure that I could counsel anyone that that’s the wise choice.
But this is where that notion of the family farm comes in. Meghan is the sixth generation on the Hammond’s farm. And they’ve been there since the 1870s. And now Meghan and Kyle have had a baby; the seventh generation has been born on the land. The reasons for staying very often are not wise financial decisions. They are about being part of something that is long and historic and meaningful to the family.
And the thing is all this contraction really started in the 1960s—after 50 years, the farmers who are left are the die-hards. That makes it even harder for the rising generation to let [the land] go because it has been fought for their whole lives. And it’s a fairly common thing these days that you have siblings who have equal shares in a farm, but don’t have equal labor being put into it. And naturally that creates friction.
Before writing this book, I knew that there were people who specialize in farm succession planning. But I learned that there are also psychologists dedicated to it as their practice.
Do you want to talk about the precision involved in soy and corn farming these days? In many ways it has become a high-tech job.
Yes, it has become an incredibly technical job at every stage of the operation—from selecting seed to deciding the seed density (where the seed is planted and how close together) to deciding about how much water to apply to a field and where and when. It’s also a matter of collecting harvest data and entering it into a system that is then returning information about how everything performed. And you’re often looking at data sets that are a decade-long and making predictions for the next year.
Most farmers don’t have just one type of crop on their fields, but even if you were just talking about soybeans, most farmers are planting different varieties in order to spread out the risk. And making those kinds of decisions and then keeping track of what you’ve decided in any given place and then of course all of the financial calculations if there’s hail damage, drought damage, or loss to insects … and no, I don’t think the average consumer has any idea about any of that.
At the same time it is a lot less labor.
No question. A lot of the physical labor has been mechanized out, which means that there are fewer people involved in the operation. But I think that this has also made farming much less of a social activity than it used to be. There are far fewer people involved in operations and that’s also contributed to the dwindling size of rural communities.
The psychological pressures and the mental and emotional pressures of farming have really soared. You’re not out there hand-husking corn and tossing it into the back of a horse drawn cart. But, to me, there is something almost more stressful about sitting in the cab of your John Deere harvester watching the color of the swath change as it’s telling you whether you’ve lost or made money for that particular row.
And the farmer suicide rates remain high in the Midwest as well, right?
Yes. And here in Nebraska, there’s been mounting evidence to suggest that those suicide rates may also be linked to some of the neuro-disruptors that have been used in pesticides. Just south of us, where the Hammonds farm, there’s a cluster of neurological disorders that is being actively studied. They’re trying to figure out why there’s a hot spot for Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders in this particular place.
Do you want to say anything more about solutions?
I really feel that the only way that the current system will be reformed is if top-down pressures change the sorts of incentives that exist for the businesses that largely control the industry—and the farmers who are under their sway.
And that means trying to reform the politics of many of these middle states. The progressives in these states—who have been essentially abandoned by national parties—need to have support. Because if we allow the state politics of the middle of the country to be controlled by agribusiness, then we’re never going to get elected leaders who are looking to regulate and reform agribusiness.
But that’s a tall order, especially with Iowa being at the center or national politics in the way it is.
Yes, but what’s fascinating is the fact that is the corruption that exists by way of pressure from big agricultural interests in Iowa is so out in the open it’s kind of jaw-dropping. And, again, this is where the decline of newspapers comes in. If there were people being paid to go out and be daily watchdogs on these sorts of things, I think that would it would be much harder for people to do.
If you really want to reform politics in the middle of the country, you’ve got to find the people who are doing the right work and give them money and then go home. But that is an awfully tall order, and I would just hope that the awareness-raising and the transformation of thinking [about food and farming] that has come into being in the last 10 years doesn’t turn into a kind of panacea.
It’s not enough to say, “I’m not contributing to these industrial practices, or I’m not contributing to climate change.” If what you’re doing has too little impact to be meaningful, I’m not sure it gets you off the hook.
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Trump cut in leaking fuel tank cleanups could leave Florida fuming.
Gasoline, oil and other contaminants that threaten groundwater are seeping from thousands of underground tanks across Florida, but the federal aid that has helped address the problem could soon start drying up.
WASHINGTON — Gasoline, oil and other contaminants that threaten groundwater are seeping from thousands of underground tanks across Florida, but the federal aid that has helped address the problem could soon start drying up.
The Trump administration is proposing to slash funding for the Leaking Underground Storage Tank program by nearly half next year — from nearly $92 million this year to about $47 million in 2018. The recommended cut in the LUST program is part of the president’s proposal to reduce the Environmental Protection Agency budget by 31% next year.
No state would feel the pinch more than Florida where some 10,000 tanks and the underground piping systems connected to them have been identified for cleanup. The Sunshine State has more leaking tanks than any other state, representing about 15% of the more than 70,000 tanks that dot the nation.
Database: See where gas tanks are leaking near you
The bigger problem isn’t just that Florida has so many problem sites – an average of 151 leaking tanks in each of its 67 counties – but that drinking water supplies are especially vulnerable to contamination, said Ben Thomas, a former tank inspector and state regulator in Alaska who now consults with private operators nationwide on meeting the inspection rules.
“Florida’s tough because the groundwater’s so shallow there,” said Thomas, who said the state has one of the tougher programs in the nation to monitor, enforce and clean up contaminated sites. “As soon as the fuel leaks into the ground, it’s in the groundwater in a lot of places.”
Funding for LUST is a drop in the EPA’s $8.2 billion budget. But state officials, environmental activists and public health advocates warn that the size of the cut carries great risk considering groundwater is the source of drinking water for nearly half of all Americans.
They say such a reduction would hamper monitoring, prevention, enforcement and cleanup of leaks as well as the important role EPA plays in providing technical assistance to state regulators and businesses, many of them gas stations, who have aging tanks and piping under their sites.
In a letter earlier this year to congressional leaders, the head of the trade organization representing state solid waste agencies said the cut would impede the long-term progress states have made on inspection and cleanup.
The program “has made great strides in increasing the number of compliant tanks in the last 25 years, which has resulted in fewer releases,” wrote Dania Rodriguez, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials. “Loss of program funding would reverse this trend.”
The Trump administration announced the proposed cut in May, two months after the Department of Veterans Affairs officially recognized the harm contaminated water — some of it linked to underground fuel tanks — inflicted on hundreds of thousands of marines stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina from 1953 through 1987.
Under the VA program announced in March, those who served at least 30 days in Lejeune during that period are eligible for treatment of eight diseases, including several cancers and Parkinson’s Disease.
There are 558,451 active tanks located in about 201,000 sites nationwide, according to the EPA's most recent tally.
Most are service stations, but they also include any operation where fuel is stored underground such as government fleet garages, large retail operations like Costco stores that sell gas, and institutions like hospitals or universities that store fuel to power emergency generators.
“Across the country, thousands of underground storage tanks and accompanying pipes — many of them made from older, corroding steel — hold and carry a variety of fuels and chemicals,” the Environmental Defense Fund wrote in a recent report. “When tanks leak harmful chemicals such as oil, gas, benzene and toluene into soil and ground water, drinking water and soil are fouled, community health is jeopardized, and economic development is crippled.”
The number of tanks with confirmed releases hit a high in 1995 with nearly 172,000. But the backlog of sites needing to be cleaned up has been declining since 2000, according to EPA records. As of March 31, EPA reported 70,094 tanks with confirmed leaks. Some of these are not actively leaking, but have residual contamination that needs to be cleaned up.
After Florida, states reporting the most leaking tanks are Michigan (8,000), Illinois (5,733), New Jersey (5,100) and North Carolina (4,006).
Florida counties reporting the most tanks as of Aug. 3 are Miami-Dade (1,090), Hillsborough (810), Pinellas (693), Duval (668) and Orange (644), according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
Site owners are ultimately liable for cleanup costs, but a taxpayer-funded trust fund is in place when sites must be addressed quickly, are abandoned or when owners don’t have the resources. The fund is financed by a 0.1 cent per gallon tax on gasoline, which generated $202 million in 2016.
The Environmental Defense Fund noted that Florida received more than $14 million in EPA grant funding from 2012 to 2016 to address the problem.
“EPA support is essential to Florida programs to monitor underground storage tanks, detect leaks of petroleum products, address the causes, repair any damage to soil or groundwater and hold polluters responsible or pay for cleanup if the responsible party can’t be found or is no longer in business,” EDF said in its report.
Administration officials did not offer much explanation for the cut, one of dozens proposed in the EPA budget.
“Historically the (underground tank) program has worked closely with our state, territorial, and tribal partners,” an agency spokeswoman wrote in an email. “We know they are on the front lines to protect our land and groundwater from petroleum leaks, such as those from gas stations and other (underground storage tank) facilities, and we expect this partnership will continue to be a hallmark of the program.”
She wrote it would be “premature for us to speculate” about EPA’s budget given that Congress has yet to finalize the agency’s funding for next year. The House Appropriations Committee voted in July to restore almost all of the funding for the program, but neither the full House nor the Senate has acted yet.
Sarah Shellabarger, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, said the agency was waiting to see how much spending lawmakers would approve for the program.
“As the federal budget process progresses, DEP will receive guidance on any necessary budget adjustments that will need to be made,” she said.
The cost of cleaning up a site, which could have multiple leaking tanks, depends on a variety of factors, including the extent of contamination and state cleanup standards. The average cleanup is estimated to cost $130,000 but can rise to over $1 million if groundwater is infected.
Thomas, the private consultant, said cutting the program would not only anger environmentalists but also hurt businesses that have come to “appreciate the heavy stick of enforcement for bad players (and) the general community outreach.”
Slashing a program known for the collaboration between regulators and businesses and the effectiveness it’s achieved in reducing the backlog of leaking tanks would be crippling, he said.
“At some point, such a deep cut makes any agency effectively non-responsive,” Thomas said. “There’s simply not enough money to know what to prioritize. Stuff that makes a big stink like enhomeforcement would probably get cut (as would) the ability for states to maintain a hotline, maintain a web page or do workshops. I could easily imagine all that stuff would be kind of viewed as frivolous and go away because it’s not core statement message stuff.”
Contact Ledyard King at lking@gannett.com; Twitter: @ledgeking
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Fig leaves are out. What to wear to be kind to the planet?
Finding environmentally friendly apparel can be a challenge. Here’s a guide to smarter choices in fabrics and clothing.
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Americans spent around $350 billion on clothing and footwear in 2016. Credit Lauren Fleishman for The New York Times
In the Garden of Eden, figuring out what to wear was easy and the fig leaves were environmentally friendly. Today, it’s much harder to find clothes that don’t have some kind of negative impact on the planet.
Textile manufacturers use complicated chemical and industrial processes to make clothing materials, from cotton to synthetic fibers. And while the environmental consequences aren’t always clear, consumption is growing. Americans spent 14 percent more on clothing and footwear in 2016 — around $350 billion total — than they did in 2011, and the trend is similar or greater in much of the rest of the world, according to the market research firm Euromonitor International.
Buying less is the easiest way to make a difference. But when you do need new clothes, you will usually be choosing among four major types of fibers: oil-based synthetics, cotton, rayon and wool. Their environmental trade-offs are so varied that a definitive ranking would be impossible. But here’s what we know, so you can make more informed decisions.
Synthetic fibers wind up in unexpected places.
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Polyester, the most common fiber, is made from a plastic derived from crude oil. Credit Eric Helgas for The New York Times
Synthetic fibers — polyester, nylon and others — make up more than 60 percent of the global fiber market by some estimates. Most are made from oil, a nonrenewable resource.
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Polyester, one of the most common fibers, is a plastic derived from crude oil. The long fibers that make up polyester thread are woven together to make fabric. Extracting the oil and melting the plastic require energy.
Perhaps a bigger concern is what happens when synthetics get into the hands of consumers.
Synthetic fibers shed plastic filaments — possibly from daily wear and tear, but also in the wash. If shed in the laundry, the filaments can make it into sewer systems and eventually into waterways. Even if these microplastics are trapped at filtration plants, they can end up in sludge produced by the facilities, which is often sent to farms to be used as fertilizer. From there, the fibers can make their way into other water systems, or into the digestive tracts of animals that graze on the fertilized plants.
Researchers found plastic fibers in samples from 29 tributaries of the Great Lakes in a 2016 study, making up about 70 percent of all the plastic collected.
Scientists have not been able to fully quantify the scale of the problem, but early research showed that plastic fibers are among the most abundant environmental debris in the world, according to Mark Browne, a senior research associate at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Cotton is natural, but not all natural.
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Fabric made from 100 percent cotton, which accounts for about 3 percent of global water use. Credit Eric Helgas for The New York Times
Cotton makes up about a quarter of all fibers used in clothing, furniture and other textiles. Synthetic fibers or rayon are often blended with cotton thread, especially if there is a cotton shortage, as there was in 2011, or if the price of cotton goes up.
Cotton’s share of the textile market is declining, but cotton production still uses just over 2 percent of the world’s arable land and accounts for about 3 percent of global water use, according to the United Nations.
Cotton also requires pesticides. According to the Department of Agriculture, 7 percent of all pesticides in the United States are used on cotton. Many of those chemicals seep into the ground or run off into surface water.
Consumers can choose organic cotton grown without pesticides, but it uses more water and requires more land than conventional crops. Organic cotton can also be much more expensive and difficult to find.
Rayon is made from plants — and also chemicals.
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Rayon, one of the first man-made fibers. Credit Eric Helgas for The New York Times
Rayon, one of the first man-made fibers, was developed from plant fibers as a substitute for silk in the 19th century. Most rayon today is produced as viscose rayon, which is treated with chemicals, including carbon disulfide.
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Chronic exposure to carbon disulfide can cause serious health problems for rayon workers, including Parkinson’s disease, premature heart attack and stroke, said Dr. Paul Blanc, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who has written about the history of rayon. The chemicals may also be released into the environment, though the effects are harder to pinpoint. By the time the rayon gets to the store, it poses no danger to consumers, Dr. Blanc said.
Viscose rayon is often made from bamboo. In Indonesia and other areas, producers are cutting down old-growth forests to plant bamboo for rayon, said Frances Kozen, associate director of the Cornell Institute of Fashion and Fiber Innovation.
Ms. Kozen warned that viscose rayon is often wrongly marketed as environmentally friendly because it is derived from bamboo. The Federal Trade Commission has required retailers to provide accurate labels.
If viscose rayon is produced mechanically from bamboo instead of chemically, which is sometimes known as “bamboo linen,” it has a relatively small environmental impact, but it is much more expensive.
Another type of rayon fiber, known as lyocell or Tencel, is often made from bamboo but uses a different chemical that is thought to be less toxic, though studies are scarce, Dr. Blanc said.
Wool might be less practical, but it’s probably more sustainable.
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Wool would be the ecologically friendly choice, if not for sheep’s methane-emitting belches. Credit Eric Helgas for The New York Times
Producing wool requires sheep. And sheep, like other ruminants including cattle, produce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, in their burps. One study suggested that 50 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions from the wool industry come from the sheep themselves.
Still, Ms. Kozen said she considered wool to be more ecologically sound than cotton, rayon or synthetic fibers, though she added that not everyone shares that view.
So what can you do?
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Four common fabrics, each with their own ecological pros and cons. Credit Eric Helgas for The New York Times
“The best thing we can all do is buy less and wear more,” Ms. Kozen said.
The “fast fashion” market isn’t helping, since it encourages rapid turnaround between seasons and more frequent clothing purchases. These clothes aren’t made to last, so they are more frequently thrown out.
When new clothes are made, materials are often shipped internationally from farms to factories to stores, adding to emissions.
Used clothing is also difficult to recycle; when synthetic fibers are woven together with natural ones, the natural fibers cannot biodegrade in landfills, which would take a long time anyway.
Even donating clothes can have unexpected consequences, said Andrew Brooks, a professor of development geography at King’s College London. Since many donated clothes end up in less developed countries, “they also displace the opportunity to produce and manufacture things locally, creating a dependency between rich countries and poor countries,” he said.
Some sustainable initiatives also save growers and producers money, said Nate Herman, a senior vice president for supply chain for the American Apparel and Footwear Association, an industry group. “That’s the best driver for sustainability: what helps the bottom line.”
For consumers, the most effective solution may be to keep wearing that old T-shirt that your family hates, buy used clothes or just make do with fewer articles of clothing.
The environmental problems from textiles will continue to compound, Ms. Kozen said, “if we can’t get rid of that mind-set that clothing is disposable.”
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Pests and pathogens could cost agriculture billions: Report.
The spread of pests and pathogens that damage plant life could cost global agriculture $540 billion a year, according to a report published on Thursday.
The spread of pests and pathogens that damage plant life could cost global agriculture $540 billion a year, according to a report published on Thursday.
The report, released by the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG) at Kew in London, said that an increase in international trade and travel had left flora facing rising threats from invasive pests and pathogens, and called for greater biosecurity measures.
"Plants underpin all aspects of life on Earth from the air we breathe right through to our food, our crops, our medicines," said Professor Kathy Willis, RBG Kew's director of science.
"If you take one away, what happens to the rest of that ecosystem - how does it impact?"
Researchers also examined the traits that would determine which plant species would cope in a world feeling the effects of climate change.
Plants with deeper roots and higher wood density are better able to withstand drought, while thicker leaves and taller grasses can cope with higher temperatures, the report found.
Surprisingly, researchers also found that the traits that are likely to help species thrive appear to be transferable across different environments.
"The interesting fact to emerge is that the suite of 'beneficial' traits are, on the whole, the same the world over and are as true in a temperate forest as in a desert," Professor Willis said in a statement.
The report, which involved 128 scientists in 12 countries, found that 1,730 new plant species had been discovered in the past year.
Nine new species of the climbing vine Mucuna, used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, were found and named across South East Asia and South and Central America.
(Reporting by Matthew Stock; Writing by Mark Hanrahan; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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Hundreds of newly-discovered plants may yield new crops or drugs.
Even as we discover promising new wild relatives of key crops and medicinal plants, some of them are already endangered by pests and climate change.
Even as we discover promising new wild relatives of key crops and medicinal plants, some of them are already endangered by pests and climate change.
More than 1,700 new plants have been discovered in the past year, including species that could help provide food in the future, a major report reveals.
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Among 1,730 new species are five new types of manihot, wild relatives of cassava, from Brazil, which could help develop new varieties of the third-most important food crop in the tropics that are resilient to drier conditions and disease.
The second annual State of the World’s Plants from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, also revealed nine new species of climbing vine Mucuna, used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, have been found.
Seven new species of Aspalathus, which provides redbush or rooibos tea, have been discovered, as has a new parsnip species in Turkey.
Kathy Willis, director of science at Kew, said the discovery of wild relatives to foods was important because crops had been bred for high yields and had often lost their genetic diversity and resilience to drought and pests.
“Crop wild relatives might not have the yields, but they have survived thousands of years in multiple climate conditions and, in their genomes, they have the genes that will enable resilience,” she said. “We need to be able to take these genes and breed these genes back into our crops to make resilient crops in the future.”
2nd_Porpax-verrucosa-photo-Andre-Schuiteman
Kew
New areas are still opening up for exploration for new plants, such as Colombia, she said.
But the report, which looks both at how plants are valuable to people and how are vulnerable to threats such as pests and climate change, also warned some new discoveries of plants were already highly endangered.
Winners and losers
There would be “winners and losers” as plants tried to adapt to the impacts of climate change such as rising temperatures, more fires and droughts and higher levels of carbon dioxide in the air.
Plants with thicker leaves, better water-use strategies, deeper roots and higher wood density are set to do better as the climate changes, the report said, while those without such traits could struggle.
It also warns of a $540 billion a year cost to agriculture if invasive pests and diseases, largely spread by the growth in international trade, are not controlled.
One such pest is the emerald ash borer, an invasive species that has devastated ash trees in the US and could spread to Europe and the UK.
Potential future costs of controlling plant pests and diseases are on top of the existing spend on the problem, with the European Union alone using 196,000 tonnes of pesticides a year against fungi, bacteria and pests such as insects.
Plants underpin human well-being
The report, involving 128 scientists in 12 countries, also reveals striking figures, including that 340 million hectares (840 million acres) of the world’s plant-covered surface burns in wildfires each year, an area the size of India.
And it shows there are 28,187 species recorded with a medicinal use, though only 16 per cent of them are cited in medicinal regulatory publications and many species have different names, causing confusion and risk.
Willis said many people still did not see plants as the most important thing “underpinning all aspects of life on Earth and human well-being”.
“We have to know the important plants, the natural capital we get from plants, but also where they are and how we need to conserve them,” said Willis. “This report is the first small step in the process of raising the profile of plants so the world at large really does start to understand their significance.”
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Arctic meltdown: NASA photos capture region in rapid transition.
Nothing about the Arctic is normal right now.
Nothing about the Arctic is normal right now. Rapid climate change is transforming the vast region by warming air and sea temperatures, shifting weather patterns, and melting sea and land ice at faster rates than were ever anticipated by even the most pessimistic forecasts a few years ago.
March 2017 became the sixth month in a row to set a record for the lowest sea ice extent, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). For the third straight year, Arctic sea ice peaked at a record low level during the winter season, missing a staggering 471,000 square miles of sea ice compared to the 1981-2010 average winter peak.
In other words, a chunk of ice about the size of Texas, California, and Kentucky combined was missing from the top of our planet.
One of the ways scientists are keeping tabs on sea and land ice in the Arctic and Antarctica is by flying aircraft with special instruments on board to collect high-resolution data on ice thickness and glacier movement.
In addition, photos from the aircraft taking part in the expedition, known as Operation IceBridge, provide stunning glimpses of what is at stake in the Far North as global warming rapidly reshapes the region.
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
From massive icebergs and broken, pancake-like sea ice to enormous fragile glaciers, the NASA aircraft are among our most important eyes on the Far North.
Such eyes are crucial for monitoring a region in transformation.
In March, Arctic sea ice also hit a record low seasonal peak for sea ice volume, which is a measure of the thickness of the ice. This record indicates that the ice cover present in the Arctic is young and thin, and therefore more susceptible to melting during the upcoming spring and summer, possibly leading to another record low sea ice extent in September.
The Arctic is warming at about twice the rate of the rest of the world, largely due to a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. As sea ice melts, it exposes darker ocean waters beneath it to incoming solar radiation, causing the water temperatures to rise. These milder ocean waters then melt more ice while also increasing air temperatures, which in turn goes on to melt more ice and snow, exposing more darker surfaces, and so on.
The records came at the end of one of the strangest winters that Arctic climate researchers have seen in modern times. In at least four instances, unusually mild air swept across the entire Arctic from the North Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, bringing the North Pole to near or just above the melting point.
A section of an ice field on Ellesmere Island, Canada. The ice fields of Ellesmere Island are retreating due to warming temperatures.
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
Katabatic wind-blown snow caught behind craggy peaks, near Meehan Glacier in NW Greenland.
JEREMY HARBECK/NASA
The C-130 flies over a long frozen-over sea ice lead.
JEREMY HARBECK/NASA
A section of glacier flows between mountains on Ellesmere Island, Canada.
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
"As a scientist, I am interested in monitoring and quantifying the changes occurring in the Arctic and examining how they are interconnected and what their causes might be," said NASA scientist Claire Parkinson. "As a person, I am concerned about the changes and the rapidity with which they are occurring."
Until recently, it was thought that most of the sea ice loss in the Arctic was occurring from the top on down, due to warming air temperatures that melted sea ice, exposed darker ocean waters, and went on to melt more ice.
However, a study published on April 6 in the journal Science found that bottom-up ice loss is also happening, particularly in the eastern Arctic Ocean where the Atlantic Ocean is making inroads.
Consider that for a minute. The ocean that has existed at the top of the planet throughout human history is losing its characteristics to the point where at times it now more closely resembles ocean waters located far to the south.
One of the hallmarks of the eastern Arctic Ocean is an area of cold and less salty water that lies above warm, dense, and salty water drawn in from the Atlantic. The separation, or "stratification," of ocean layers has kept those warmer waters under the surface, allowing surface waters to cool and form sea ice.
Think about stratification as a layer cake that was once clearly defined, with the layers neatly separated. Today, the Arctic Ocean is experiencing a merging of the layers.
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
A patch of sunlight illuminates an ice field on Ellesmere Island, Canada.
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
MARIO TAMA/GETTY
There is no reason to suggest all hope is lost in the Arctic.
ZACK LABE
Since the 1970s, the eastern Arctic Ocean has become less stratified, particularly in recent years, the Science study found. During recent winters, the cap of cold water has completely broken down, bringing warmer Atlantic waters to the surface and limiting sea ice growth.
While the changes in the Arctic have been rapid and widespread, many scientists believe there is still time to slow the pace of Arctic warming -- or eventually reverse course altogether.Â
The Arctic serves as an alarm bell on climate change, warning the rest of the world what is about to happen elsewhere as global warming continues.Â
"From a personal view, I see these changes in the Arctic as a harbinger of what is to come for the rest of the planet," said Walt Meier, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "The Arctic, because much of it is on the cusp of freezing/melting, is particularly sensitive to warming. It is where global warming happens first," he said in an email.Â
A March 6 study in Nature Climate Change found that if the world meets the temperature target in the Paris Climate Agreement, then the Arctic Ocean has less than a 50 percent chance of being ice-free during the summer.
More warming, though, would bring much greater odds of all the sea ice melting in the summer, causing the Arctic to be an open ocean during the season. There's a 73 percent probability of such a scenario occurring if global warming reaches 3 degrees Celsius, or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels, the study said.
"We are at a critical point where decisions to slow greenhouse gas emissions … will have important effects to future Arctic climate change," said Zack Labe, a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine, who specialized in Arctic climate change.
"Essentially, there is no reason to suggest all hope is lost in the Arctic. And there hasn't necessarily been a tipping point," he said. "However, it remains crucial that we focus on new alternative forms of energy and seek solutions and a better understanding of adaptation and mitigation of climate change."
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Researchers raise concerns over health risks of popular herbicide.
An emerging body of research suggests that exposure to paraquat is correlated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease.
It’s springtime in the valley, which, for many of us, means it’s time to clear the weeds out of our backyards. The same goes for growers, but the landscape of industrial weedkillers is changing. A California judge recently ruled that the main ingredient of the popular herbicide RoundUp must be labeled as a carcinogen. Now, another popular herbicide is facing some scrutiny over its health impacts as well.
Weeds kill crops. Kurt Hembree says that’s because they’re pernicious moochers.
“Direct competition for water and nutrients. Whatever the tree likes, the weeds like,” Hembree says.
Hembree is a weed specialist with the UC Cooperative Extension in Fresno County. He advises growers on how to manage their weeds.
We’re standing in a field near Selma that’s got rows and rows of leafy stalks about 2 feet tall. “This is a young almond orchard,” he says. “They call them baby trees.”
He says one product is especially good at protecting young trees from weeds: Paraquat. “Paraquat’s a contact-type herbicide,” he says. “In other words, it's a material that, if you sprayed it on a plant, it'll disrupt the plant's cells.”
He says it essentially melts away plant tissue, clearing the ground of any living plant other than the tree. “And basically in five or six days, whatever it touches, it spots up and it causes necrosis and death on the tissue,” he says.
Paraquat is popular because it’s cheap and effective. But like many chemicals, it’s dangerous. It’s a highly controlled, lethal substance with strict instructions to keep handlers safe. Nonetheless, an emerging body of research suggests mere exposure to the chemical is correlated with increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. Many countries have outlawed the herbicide, including the European Union, which banned it in 2007, partly because of uncertainty surrounding Parkinson’s. As researchers work to tease out the nature of that correlation, paraquat remains one of the most common herbicides in California.
To be clear, Hembree says paraquat is explicitly labeled as toxic. “There’s different warning label levels,” he says. “This is danger, which is the highest level you can have.”
Swallowing even a small amount can lead to organ failure and death. It’s occasionally used even for suicides, particularly in developing countries. To prevent accidental ingestion, it’s dyed blue and given a sharp smell. It’s typically sprayed by machine to minimize human contact.
“Something like paraquat, you're going to wear rubber boots, you're going to wear goggles while you're spraying,” Hembree says. “You don't want to get this stuff on your skin or on your mouth or anywhere.”
Paraquat is among the top 10 most common herbicides in California, and the San Joaquin Valley gets over three-quarters of the state total. It’s used on scores of crops, primarily tree nuts, grapes, alfalfa and cotton. And before the drought struck, paraquat use was rising. In 2011, Valley growers used almost 80% more of it than they did in 1990, the earliest year data are available.
Some researchers say those numbers are concerning.
“The number of studies that have linked paraquat use occupationally to increased risk of Parkinson’s should raise some concerns if there’s an increasing environmental presence,” says Dr. Caroline Tanner, a neurologist at UC San Francisco who’s dedicated her career to studying Parkinson’s disease. In 2011, she published a highly cited study based on in-depth surveys with agricultural workers in the Midwest.
“People who mixed or applied this chemical had more than double the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease compared to people really very similar as far as where they lived, even what they did for a living, age and gender,” she says.
Notably, Tanner says, people who said they were careful with personal protective equipment were an exception.
“Those people, when exposed to paraquat, still didn’t have a greater risk of Parkinson’s,” she says.
Tanner is careful to call the Parkinson’s-paraquat relationship a correlation, not causation. But it’s one of many studies that suggests that correlation. And Freya Kamel, an epidemiologist with the National Institutes of Health who co-authored the study with Caroline Tanner, argues demonstrating cause and effect isn’t really necessary.
“We can't say that it causes the disease,” Kamel says, “but I also want to emphasize that you don't need to demonstrate a direct and specific causal relationship in order to suggest that there might be a reason for concern.”
Not all researchers are quite as convinced. Sirisha Nandipati is a neurologist with Kaiser Permanente in Marin County. She authored a review last year that compiled other studies of Parkinson’s disease. Of the eight studies she found that mentioned paraquat, one study demonstrated no connection between the two, and three others showed a correlation only when paraquat was combined with other risk factors.
“So it seems like genetic factors can influence it, even synergistic effects between paraquat and other pesticides can lead to some sort of correlation between paraquat and Parkinson's,” Nandipati says, “but the data is certainly mixed.”
Part of what’s confounding is that Parkinson’s disease is rare and there’s no statewide registry of the disease. Plus, it’s a long-term disease, and it may reflect environmental exposures from decades ago. In 2014, Tulare County had the highest rate of Parkinson’s-related deaths in the Valley, but it wasn’t a standout across the state. Plus, many other Valley counties apply more paraquat.
Syngenta, the chemical giant that manufactures Gramoxone, whose main ingredient is paraquat, declined an interview but did issue a statement claiming its product is not associated with the disease. It has also funded studies that conclude that.
The EPA and CDC do not mention Parkinson’s disease on their paraquat information pages, but the EPA does acknowledge the emerging research in a regulatory filing from March 2016.
Meanwhile, ongoing research out of UCLA aims to pinpoint the environmental exposures associated with Parkinson’s disease here in California.
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