In Partnership with NYC High School, Cornell U. Builds and Enhances Sustainable Agriculture Technology

By Jessica Vernabe / February 8, 2012 7:45 pm

Students at culinary arts-focused Food and Finance High School in New York City learn more than just how to cook up a good fish fillet—they also learn how to grow the fish along with other foods using real-time, applied science and Cornell University technologies.

The high school is home to the Cornell University Cooperative Extension (CUCE), New York City Hydroponics, Aquaculture, Aquaponics Learning Labs, where students learn how to grow their own tilapia and other fish species, more than 10 different types of lettuce, Chinese cabbages and herbs. The food is used in the campus cafeteria, in the school’s culinary classes and in its student catering program, said Philson A. A. Warner, founding director of the CUCE learning labs. Warner is also CUCE New York City’s coordinator of science, technology and sustainable agriculture. Continue reading →

Posted in agricultural entrepreneurship, Agriculture Research, aquaculture, Aquaponics, cooperative extension, hydroponics, recirculating farms, Research, sustainable agriculture education, sustainable agriculture initiative, sustainable aquaculture, university sustainable agriculture, Urban Agriculture, young farmers |

International Research Team Shows Worldwide Honey Bee Colony Losses Continue

By seedstock / February 8, 2012 2:49 pm

IBRA Press Release - Since 2006 there has been concern worldwide about losses of honey bee colonies, especially the phenomenon of “Colony Collapse Disorder” in the USA. Information about the extent of these losses has,to date, been patchy, unsystematic and difficult to compare year on year and from country to country. Today, for the first time, the results of systematic surveys in Europe, north America, China, Israel and Turkey are published together in the Journal of Apicultural Research.  Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture Research |

From Film to Action, Greenhorns Org. Inspires Young People to Farm for Sustainable Future

By Kelly Hatton / February 7, 2012 6:27 pm

Severine von Tscharner Fleming, founder of The Greenhorns

The Greenhorns, a nonprofit organization with a mission to promote, recruit and support a new generation of farmers, began in 2007, when founder and director Severine von Tscharner Fleming decided to make a film.

The idea sprouted while Fleming was helping organize a film festival at UC Berkley. The lineup of documentaries at the festival highlighted the gloomy realities of our time: a food system in crisis; a corrupt political system; a cycle of global poverty and exploitation. The threats of global warming, soil depletion, bioengineering pitted against biodiversity and poisoned waterways appeared insurmountable onscreen. Fleming wanted to produce a film that would inspire action rather than ennui. Continue reading →

Posted in agricultural entrepreneurship, new farmers, non-profit sustainable agriculture, sustainable agriculture visionairies, young farmers |

Wyoming Hydroponic Tower Co. Seeks to Facilitate Sustainable Food Production and Make Farming Less Expensive

By Matt Wilhalme / February 6, 2012 7:29 pm

Basil growing in a ZipGrow Tower

Nate Storey and business partner Paul Bennick want to make farming more efficient, sustainable and affordable for the private and commercial greenhouse grower. To do so, the partners founded Bright AgroTech, LLC, a mission driven company that develops modular hydroponic production towers to not only increase production in hydroponic and aquaponic systems, but also facilitate sustainable food production.

“We got into it to make farming less expensive,” Storey says.

The product that Storey, a PhD candidate in agronomy at the University of Wyoming, along with Bennick, a Wyoming Army National Guardsmen who served two tours in Iraq and grew up on a ranch, developed to reduce costs is called the ZipGrow Tower™. Continue reading →

Posted in agricultural entrepreneurship, agriculture startup, Aquaponics, greenhouse production, hydroponics, Sustainable Ag Startup, vertical farming |

North Dakota State University Enters in Partnership for Energy Beet Development Project

By seedstock / February 6, 2012 3:09 pm

News Release - Group hopes to develop at least 12 sustainable ethanol facilities across North Dakota.

A project that will develop an advanced biofuel from energy beets and provide growers across North Dakota with a new industrial crop is taking another important step forward, fueled by a significant two-year North Dakota Renewable Energy Council grant.

“This project truly is a public-private partnership with the Green Vision Group (GVG) of Fargo and Heartland Renewable Energy of Muscatine Iowa, plus research by North Dakota State University, to develop the energy beet biofuels industry in North Dakota,” says Cole Gustafson, NDSU Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics chair. Continue reading →

Posted in Biofuel, Press Release, renewable energy, Research, Sustainable Ag News and Information, sustainable agriculture initiative, sustainable agriculture news, university sustainable agriculture |

Agriculture Dep. Sec. Merrigan Announces Funding To Create Jobs and Strengthen Economic Foundation of Rural America

By USDA / February 4, 2012 12:44 am

USDA National Program for Genetic Improvement of Feed Efficiency in Beef CattleNews Release – CHICAGO, February 3, 2012 – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today announced that USDA has selected 298 recipients in 44 states and Puerto Rico to receive business development assistance through the Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) program. Merrigan made the announcement in Chicago after keynoting the “Local/Regional Food System Conference” hosted at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Continue reading →

Posted in USDA News |

Re-Imagining Agriculture Event in Los Angeles to Focus on Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurship

By Robert Puro / February 3, 2012 12:48 am

(Los Angeles, CA, February 2, 2012) – A growing crop of agricultural entrepreneurs is beginning to sprout in Southern California. Compelled by a desire to meet the food and energy demands of a world population forecast to peak at 9 billion by 2050, these entrepreneurs are endeavoring to re-imagine a more sustainable, healthy and profitable future for agriculture – from the development of high tech farms that utilize the latest hydroponic and aquaponic technology to grow food cleanly, efficiently and without chemicals to urban farming models that seek to bring scalable food production back to cities.

To explore this flight to innovation in agriculture, please join Seedstock, a sustainable agriculture media company, in association with the Entrepreneur Association and the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies on March 7, from 6pm – 9pm at the UCLA Anderson School of Management for the event, Re-Imagining Agriculture: Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurship in Southern California.  Continue reading →

Posted in agricultural entrepreneurship, agriculture startup, Aquaponics, hydroponics, Seedstock Event, Startup Profiles, Sustainable Ag News and Information, sustainable agriculture advocacy, sustainable agriculture education, sustainable agriculture visionairies, Urban Agriculture, Urban Farming |

Atlanta’s Bioponica Seeks to Close Loop on Hydroponic and Aquaponic Farming

By Noelle Swan / February 2, 2012 10:28 pm

The term sustainable farming has been creeping steadily into the vernacular, popping up in business plans, on food blogs, and at local farmers’ markets around the country. David Epstein, D.O. and Kenneth Lovell, P.E. of Bioponica™ hope to usher new farmers into the world of sustainable agriculture through their unique design and method of soilless, closed-loop, farming.  Continue reading →

Posted in agriculture startup, anaerobic digestion, Aquaponics, hydroponics, recirculating farms, Startup Profiles, Sustainable Ag Startup |

Branding and Marketing Advice for Sustainable Food Entrepreneurs: DIY Press Savvy, Part Two

By Alisha Lumea and Polly Legendre / February 2, 2012 8:53 pm

Last week in our branding and marketing advice column for sustainability-minded food entrepreneurs, we kicked off our three-part series on DIY press savvy by providing advice on how to put together a story that will resonate with the media. This week’s column is all about how to get your story in front of the right reporters.

So let’s begin with the pitch.

While it’s perfectly acceptable to make a phone call to make your pitch, email is generally the best first approach. With email, you won’t catch someone at a bad moment, and you can craft your pitch without worrying about getting flustered mid-sentence or going off-topic. Continue reading →

Posted in advice, agricultural entrepreneurship, Agripreneur Toolkit, Branding and Marketing |

Wisconsin’s Future Farm Packs Sustainable Punch with Cow Powered Aquaponics Operation

By Jessica Vernabe / February 1, 2012 7:12 pm

The owners of aquaponics-focused Future Farm Food and Fuel, LLC know how to maximize their resources.

The company’s operations take place out of a 27,000-square-foot greenhouse in Baldwin, Wisc., which houses fish tanks and growing bays that contain herbs and vegetables. Tubes run back and forth between the tanks and growing bays, recirculating water, otherwise known as effluent. Continue reading →

Posted in agricultural entrepreneurship, agriculture startup, algae, anaerobic digestion, aquaculture, Aquaponics, Farm Profiles, greenhouse production, hydroponics, Imagination, local and regional distribution, manure digester, recirculating farms, renewable energy, Startup Profiles, Sustainable Ag Startup, sustainable agriculture methods, sustainable agriculture practices, sustainable dairy |

Roof Agriculture – An Old Concept Comes to Boston in a New Form

By John Stoddard / January 31, 2012 5:39 pm

This is a guest post from John Stoddard, a Founding Farmer of Higher Ground Farm in Boston. Higher Ground is currently seeking a 25,000+ square foot roof space for a farm.

Can you hear mooing coming from the Common? Listen closely: it’s distant. Like 200 years in the past distant, but it’s there – part of the spirit of Boston. It’s easy to forget in our modern local foods movement that urban agriculture is not a new idea.  Yes, dairy cows and sheep once grazed the Boston Common, and the victory gardens of the first and second World Wars were successful in producing millions of pounds of food. Continue reading →

Posted in agricultural entrepreneurship, Food Security, local and regional distribution, local food systems, sustainable agriculture initiative, Urban Agriculture, urban agriculture policy, Urban Farming |

Looking to his Roots, Former Engineer Launches Sustainable Olive Oil Business in Corning, California

By Nicola Kerslake / January 31, 2012 3:30 pm

When Dewey Lucero was laid off from his engineering job in 2005, he started to think about taking his career in a new direction. Growing up as the grandson of two olive farmers in California’s Central Valley, Lucero was accustomed to helping out with the harvest from a young age, and eventually turned to his roots. “I realized that I could build on my grandfathers’ work by developing an olive oil brand,” said Lucero, who told me about the origin of his sustainable olive oil business at a jam-packed tasting event last weekend. One of Lucero’s grandfathers had sold table olives, while the other sold to the region’s largest olive oil mill and occasionally crushed olives to bottle oil for friends and family. Continue reading →

Posted in agricultural entrepreneurship, drip irrigation technology, sustainable agriculture practices |

Denver’s Waste Farmers Bring Soil to Life

By Noelle Swan / January 27, 2012 1:02 am

For John-Paul Maxfield, enriching the soil isn’t just a business.

“If we’re going to feed 9 billion people by 2050, we’re going to have go find new methods. Soil has been neglected throughout industrial agriculture. Anytime we harvest, we take something away and our agricultural model has been that we don’t need to put it back. We’ve got to go back and repair that.”

Maxfield comes from a family of farmers and ranchers. Many years ago, his grandfather was nominated Agricultural Citizen of the Century in Wyoming. He calls his grandfather his hero, but believes that his way of farming must become a piece of history if the agricultural industry is to feed the every growing planet.

In 2008, Maxfield set out to be the change. He launched Waste Farmers with $9000, a newly emptied retirement account, a truck, and two-fold mission: feed the soil and reduce agriculture dependency on synthetic fertilizers. Continue reading →

Posted in agricultural entrepreneurship, Biochar, composting, manure compost, soil, Startup Profiles, Sustainable Ag Startup, vermicompost |

Branding and Marketing Advice for Sustainable Food Entrepreneurs: DIY Press Savvy

By Alisha Lumea and Polly Legendre / January 26, 2012 8:26 pm

This week in our branding and marketing advice column for sustainability-minded food entrepreneurs we kick off a three-part series on working with the media that will cover how to develop your story, how to make your approach to the right reporters, and finally how to leverage the coverage you receive.

The media plays such a huge role in society that it often gets talked about as something abstract and impenetrable. Getting coverage is really not all that mysterious, and the priesthood of PR agents isn’t required. With a few pointers and “rules of the road,” you will have everything you need to be a great press agent for yourself. And you will have what no one else can give you — authenticity. Nobody can tell your story with more passion, or explore more facets of it, than you. Authenticity, passion and a well-structured story mean more than an address book full of media contacts.

Continue reading →

Posted in advice, Agripreneur Toolkit, Branding and Marketing |

ZeaChem Selected for $232.5 Million USDA Loan Guarantee

By seedstock / January 26, 2012 3:27 pm

Award to Support Construction of ZeaChem’s First Commercial-Scale Cellulosic Biorefinery

News Release – Lakewood, Colo. – Jan. 26, 2012 – ZeaChem Inc., a developer of biorefineries for the conversion of renewable biomass into sustainable fuels and chemicals, today announced it has been selected for a $232.5 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 9003 Biorefinery Assistance Program. The conditional commitment enables the financing and construction of ZeaChem’s first commercial-scale cellulosic biorefinery, a state-of-the-art plant that will produce bio-based fuels and chemicals from woody biomass and agricultural residues with the highest yield, lowest capital cost, and lowest carbon footprint in the industry. Continue reading →

Posted in Ag Industry News, Biofuel, Biofuels, Press Release, renewable energy, Sustainable Ag News and Information, sustainable agriculture news, USDA News |

Agriculture Ministers Meet in Berlin to Renew Efforts to Reduce Food Waste and Eliminate Hunger

By Andrew Burger / January 25, 2012 11:02 pm

Ministers from 64 countries gathered in Berlin for the fourth Berlin Agriculture Ministers’ Summit to sign a declaration and issue a communique this past weekend underscoring the importance of improving environmental sustainability and reducing food waste in order to better address the interrelated issues of poor nutrition, food insecurity and scarcity.

The ministers called on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to “draw up concepts for reducing the loss and waste of food,” and to cooperate with governments and other stakeholders to enact such policies, according to an International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) report. Present were agricultural ministers from Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, and the UK, along with counterparts from some three dozen developing countries. Continue reading →

Posted in International Ag News, international sustainable agriculture, Sustainable Ag News and Information, sustainable agriculture news |