food waste
Waste Reuse, Health and Nutrient Density Core to Arizona-based Aquaponic Operation
May 20, 2013 | Melonie Magruder
Mark Rhine and Marlo Ibanez, co-owners of Rhibafarms. Photo Credit: Rhibafarms.
Five years ago Mark Rhine and his business partner Marlo Ibanez, co-owners of Rhibafarms, had a broadband company in Phoenix, Arizona. They fielded a $225,000 a month payroll, traveled constantly and ate junk food only as an afterthought. Then they cashed in their company, bought a farm – Rhibafarms – and saw their health turn 180 degrees.
“We both lost a ton of weight, lowered our blood pressure and cholesterol and stopped taking medication,” Rhine said. “All because we started eating the organic food we grow. So all we want to grow now is very nutrient-dense food.” Read More
Ag Gains as Company Transforms 2 Million Tons of Organic Waste to 29 Million Bags of Soil
March 4, 2013 | Melonie Magruder
Anaerobic digesters at Harvest Power’s Energy Garden in Bay Lake, Florida. Photo Credit: Harvest Power.
Harvest Power is about dirt. It’s also about soil regeneration and managing the modern day intersection of waste, agriculture and energy, so that ongoing human consumption can be used as the engine to drive ongoing renewable energy.
In three and a half years, CEO Paul Sellew has created a company that diverts more than two million tons of organic waste material from landfills and turns it into some 29 million bags of soil, mulch and fertilizer products while producing 65,000 megawatt hours of heat and power-generating energy to run its facilities.
Harvest Power operates in 30 sites across the U.S. and Canada, using strategic partnerships with municipalities, haulers and state-of-the-art anaerobic digesters to create high value compost that is in turn used to create more high nutrition food that can be later be recycled into the system starting the whole process over again. Read More
Tucson, AZ Aquaponics Startup Keeps it Local, Grows Fish and Produce in the Desert
February 25, 2013 | Pamela Ellgen
Sweet persian melon grown by Local Roots Aquaponic Family System.
The idea of eating only locally-grown, seasonal food sounds appealing. Until you move to the desert. With an average annual rainfall of less than 13 inches, Tucson, Arizona is somewhat less than hospitable to traditional, soil-based agriculture. And fish? Forget it.
But, it was not the land that drew Stéphane Herbert-Fort to the Sonoran desert. It was the sky. He came to the University of Arizona to study astronomy and graduated with a PhD in 2011. Midway through his grad studies, however, he unearthed a deeper ambition than life as an academic.
“As a longtime fan of sustainable technologies and organic gardening, I wanted to join the two and make an impact on urban agriculture in Tucson. It was the perfect time for a change. Aquaponics fulfills my passions: to grow as much food as possible, simply and sustainably.” Read More
First Time Farmers in Hopewell, NJ Embrace Unique Business Model, Hope to Grow Sustainable Farm Movement
February 25, 2013 | Missy Smith
Robin and Jon McConaughy, owners of Double Brook Farm in Hopewell, NJ. Photo Credit: Double Brook Farm.
Like many people jumping aboard the local food revolution, Robin and Jon McConaughy’s sustainable farming journey all started with an article that took a peek behind the conventional farming curtain. Ten years ago, as Robin McConaughy was flipping through the New York Times’ Sunday newspaper, she came across Michael Pollan’s article “Power Steer”, which chronicled the life of a conventionally raised cow from birth to dinner table.
“It disgusted me. It was such an eye opener,” reflects McConaughy, who says that neither she nor her husband have farming backgrounds. “I actually thought people farmed on green fields. I never [considered] what the meat from the supermarket actually was.” Already having a desire to own some land where their now 10- and 12-year-old boys could grow up forming a first-hand understanding of nature, McConaughy and her husband Jon found Pollan’s belly-turning piece to be the final push in a healthy, sustainable direction.
In 2003, the McConaughys purchased their 60-acre farm in Hopewell Township, N.J., and got to work raising some animals for their family’s consumption. Read More
TEDx Manhattan Shines Light on Sustainable Ag Issues from Seed Saving to Food Waste
February 21, 2013 | Nicola Kerslake
Last weekend’s sustainable agriculture themed TEDx Manhattan was entitled “Changing the Way We Eat”. A TEDx is an independent version of the incredibly popular TED Talks each of which is a day long series of brief presentations on “ideas worth spreading” around a specific topic. The New York version is one of the more popular ones, with the 200 person strong live audience supplemented by a further 3,000 people at viewing parties around the country.
The subject of the day’s talks ranged from White House pastry chef Bill Yosses on “the hedonistic culture of healthy eating” to a brief excerpt from the upcoming movie, “Food Chains”, which looks at the conditions endured by farm laborers. Read More
Startup Pioneers New ‘H2H’ Process to Efficiently Convert Supermarket Food Waste into Liquid Fertilizer
February 6, 2013 | Noelle Swan
California Safe Soil's Harvest-to-Harvest (H2H) Cycle. Image Credit: California Safe Soil.
Food waste is an enormous problem in the United States. An estimated 40 percent of all food grown here never nourishes anyone, but instead rots away in landfills. What if those nutrients could be captured, before they started to rot and returned to the soil, all in a matter of hours? That’s exactly what Daniel and David Morash say they can do at California Safe Soil, convert wasted food into a nutrient-rich soil additive. Sound like composting? It’s a similar concept but the Morash’s say that their process is faster, safer, and more effective. They have teamed up with researchers at UC Davis to try and prove it.
The concept is not entirely new. The idea of using digested food to fertilize plants is nearly as old as agriculture. Read More
2,500 Acre Organic Farm in Arizona Rooted in Compost and Community Thrives on Social Responsibility
February 4, 2013 | Pamela Ellgen
Duncan Family Farms in Buckeye, Arizona. Photo Credit: Pamela Ellgen
The principles of organic farming permeate every aspect of Duncan Family Farms from the seeds they plant in the ground to those they sow in the local community.
“We believe that the primary responsibility of Duncan Family Farms is to produce clean, healthy, life-giving food,” says founder and self-proclaimed “dirt nerd” Arnott Duncan. “We are also committed to making a strong contribution to an improved environment and to giving back to our community.”
Arnott and his wife Kathleen started the farm over two decades ago, and that vision has remained the cornerstone of their operation since the very beginning. Read More
Gills Onions Taps Sustainable Methods to Bring Tears of Profitable Joy
January 14, 2013 | Melonie Magruder
Steven Gill, co-owner of Gills Onions in the field. Photo Credit: Gills Onions.
It’s enough to make you cry. Gills Onions is one of the largest family-owned onion farming operations in the nation. But the Oxnard-based facility doesn’t just grow the tears-provoking vegetable. They control every aspect of production from growing, harvesting, processing, packing and shipping the bulbs in handy, diced up packages to retailers, food service outlets and industrial manufacturers throughout the nation and Canada. And they do so using some surprising sustainable production practices that have lowered their operating costs over a million dollars a year.
Allen Gill had been farming in California’s Central Valley since the 1940s when he brought sons Steven and David into his Rio Farms business. Read More
EPA Focuses on Food Waste for 15th Annual America Recycles Day
November 16, 2012 | EPA
News Release – WASHINGTON - Today on the 15th annual America Recycles Day, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) renewed its commitment to helping Americans reduce wasted food by working with grocers, universities, stadiums and other venues through its Sustainable Materials Management Food Recovery Challenge. Read More
To Decrease Food Waste and Fight Hunger, Boston Area Org Gleans Unharvested Food from Local Farms
November 15, 2012 | Noelle Swan
According to a recent report released by the National Resource Defense Council, nearly half of all the food produced in the United States never makes it to the dinner table. At the same time, hunger has become a major problem in the United States, with 46 million people relying on the nations’ Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps). The Boston Area Gleaners, a non-profit food rescue organization based in Waltham, Mass., seeks to bridge the gap between excess food and hungry people by diverting some of that waste to families in need through an age-old practice of gleaning, or picking crops that have been passed over during primary harvest. Read More
