sustainable agriculture news
Could This One Simple Idea be the Key to Solving Farmer-Environmentalist Conflicts
October 23, 2017 | Brian BohmanThis article was originally published on Ensia.com
A rural community finds that for groundwater pollution, understanding each other’s constraints can make all the difference.
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Imagine waking up one day and learning that your community’s water supply is contaminated by a pollutant in concentrations deemed unsafe by officials. That’s what happened to the citizens of Perham, Minnesota, in the 1990s, when workers discovered that the level of nitrates — a pollutant that can cause serious illness or death in infants — in city well water was so high that they needed to dilute it with water sourced from uncontaminated wells to meet public health standards. The likely culprit was the use by local farmers of nitrogen fertilizer, which, if applied in quantities greater than what crops use, can end up contaminating groundwater. The finding set the stage for a potential standoff between farmers focused on growing crops and environmentalists focused on keeping water clean. Read More
How Some African Farmers are Responding to Climate Change — and What We Can Learn from Them
August 1, 2017 | Geoffrey KamadiThis article was originally published on Ensia.com
Agriculture is being hit hard by drought, but nimble producers are fighting back.
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As sub-Saharan Africa’s climate changes, small-scale farmers are increasingly looking to innovative ways of dealing with agricultural challenges. And in some instances, the techniques they adopt are helping to combat climate change, too.
Alternative animal feed, climate-friendly grasses and the use of fodder trees are among the examples providing farmers resilience and leading to benefits such as more productive livestock and new business opportunities — all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building healthy soils. Read More
Weekly Stories of Food Systems Innovation from Around the Country
January 5, 2017 | seedstockTo Grow Community and Jobs of the Future, Suburbanite Launches Vertical Farming Enterprise in Detroit
BY TRISH POPOVITCH
After spending time with street children in Brazil as part of a missionary trip, Jeff Adams, founder of Detroit, … Read More
Once the Largest Farming County in US, Los Angeles’s Agricultural Roots Laid Bare in New Book
August 30, 2016 | Karen Briner
Book cover image for “From Cows to Concrete: How Farming Transformed Los Angeles County” © 2016 by Rachel Surls and Judith Gerber, published by Angel City Press. All rights reserved. Image used with permission.
Only a bird’s eye view truly reveals the extent of Los Angeles’s urban sprawl; a city crossed by ribbons of highways supporting unending streams of cars, where even its river is mostly encased in concrete. It’s hard to imagine that this was once a fertile place of such abundance that its name conjured up images of vineyards, orange groves and orchards; in which neighborhoods were better known for their celery than their celebrities. A timely new book, From Cows to Concrete: the Rise and Fall of Farming in Los Angeles, by Rachel Surls and Judith Gerber explores Los Angeles’s past as the agricultural center of North America, tracing its precipitous path as it developed into a concrete metropolis. It’s a cautionary tale that also offers hope for the future in the form of the burgeoning urban farm movement and a renewed interest in community and backyard gardening.
Seedstock recently spoke to co-author, Rachel Surls, Sustainable Food Systems Advisor at the University of California where her job includes overseeing a volunteer program of 300 trained master gardeners who teach local communities sustainable gardening. Read More
Seedstock Sustainable Ag Conference’s Urban Farm Field Trip to Tour Diverse Local Food Operations in Los Angeles
August 21, 2014 | Robert Puro
Attendees of Seedstock’s 3rd Annual Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Conference will get a sneak peak at Los Angeles’ first multi-faceted food production business incubator for local entrepreneurs along with a tour of a blossoming 1.5-acre high school campus urban farming operation in Pasadena and a visit to a shipping container farm in the L.A. Art District.
The field trip, an excursion into the wide-ranging diversity of sustainable urban agriculture, will kick off Seedstock’s “Reintegrating Ag: Local Food Systems and the Future of Cities” two-day event on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014.
In the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles, a former 56,000-square-foot industrial building is undergoing major renovations to ultimately house L.A. Prep, an accelerator for small food producers who have outgrown their startup spaces. The project, which broke ground this summer, will have its first tenants taking occupancy in early 2015. Read More
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