Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas‘ Editor-In-Chief, discusses the use of intelligent irrigation technologies to save water and green your landscaping with Chris Spain, CEO of Hydropoint.
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I just got back from three days at one of my favorite ag industry meetings: The Produce Marketing Association “Fresh Summit.” To those in the industry this is just known as the PMA. This is an event where the vast majority of the fresh produce and flower industry gathers to show off their products, their new ideas and all the technologies that help process, sort, package and preserve the freshness of the produce. There are more than a thousand booths and a great many of them offer samples like the one pictured above. You get to see new and exotic fruits and vegetables, some of which eventually make it into the mainstream (I’ll talk about some examples in a later post).
So, basically I juist got to spend three days talking to people about produce, traceability, food safety and sustainability - all the while eating delicious produce samples. If it didn’t cost $700 to get in I’m sure this event would be over-run. I think they should have an additional week for consumers at some lower cost (maybe with a lottery for who gets to come).
Anyway, I was encouraged to find that “sustainability” was a major theme this year - far more than two years ago which was the last time I got to go to the PMA. I could blog for days about what I saw, but I’ll hit some highlights.
There was a very cool alternative to the traditional cardboard “flat.” Most fresh produce is shipped in case boxes or in “flats” which are the units that retailers put out on the display if they don’t actually transfer the produce into bulk displays. ECOPACK has come up with something they call a Green Box which is made of stackable flats or trays made of recyclable or returnable plastic that are 1/2 the weight of the cardboard. The marketing and traceability information is on small sleeves attached to the ends of the tray. The link I will give you is directed to the produce industry, but you can see it’s sustainability focus.
I talked with some folks from CSX who are involved in shipments of produce by rail. They have done a lot of work to understand the carbon footprint of their transport and have monthly contests for their train engineers to see who can achieve the best fuel efficiency. They are working on ways to make rail a more competitive option with trucking, even for fresh produce, by providing points of freight consolidation. Especially for or those of you who live in places with that thing called “winter,” this is great for increasing the sustainability of your fresh produce supply.
On the trucking front, there was a company called Universal Container Inc. that has developed a refrigerated container technology for fresh produce shipping (could be on trucks, trains or ships) that uses liquid nitrogen for cooling rather than the standard diesel compressor technology. It consumes little energy and has no carbon, particulate, NOX emissions or noise in operation. Its only emission is nitrogen gas which is already ~80% of the atmosphere. There is obviously energy involved in producing the liquid nitrogen, but that is really largely a co-product from companies that are after other atmospheric gases. I’d like to see a full-blown LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) on this because I’d bet money that this will come out on top in terms of GHG in addition to the air and noise pollution advantages.
There were also some really cool sustainability things in the packaging area. I’ll put that in a later post.
Perhaps the best example of sustainability innovation by a produce company came from the largest Onion company in the US, Gills Onions. They put in an anaerobic digester to deal with the waste from their operations and are now generating enough energy to power 460 homes.
I was encouraged, because even though I met some folks at the PMA who didn’t even have sustainability on their radar, I met far more produce industry people who were on-board with the importance of this issue. I’m not at all saying that the sustainability challenge has been fully addressed by the fresh produce industry, but I was very impressed with the momentum I observed.
Your are welcome to comment on this site. You can also email me at feedback.sdsavage@gmail.com.
All images from me, Steve Savage (Not a great photographer).
I’ll come back to the Mycotoxin issue soon. Instead, I’ll talk today about my serious worries about Climate Change.
People involved in world agriculture have no patience with the supposed “debate” about climate change. We are already seeing the effects, and the projections for the future are not encouraging. The most troubling feature of this phenomenon (and one that occurs even if you don’t believe that it is human-driven) is that we are facing increasing variation in climatic events. The yearly changes in average temperature or even annual rainfall may not be dramatic, but what we are anticipating is that there will be more extreme weather events. Climate averages are not what matters for crop production - Variation is. A few days of intense rain or heat at the wrong time can devastate a crop. A few weeks of drought can do the same. A single hail or frost event can make all the difference in what a farmer can harvest. We have always had those risks for farming and only long term data will demonstrate whether there has been an increasing trend as is predicted. For instance, It isn’t possible yet to say that the current, extended drought in Australia is caused by elevated greenhouse gasses, but some day we will know whether it was by looking back historically. Of course that will be too late. Our actions have to come now. The other huge threat from climate change is that water supplies will be more limiting in many areas that are irrigated today. Though that area is much smaller than rain-fed areas, it is very important to the food supply.
Some have predicted that “Global warming” and elevated CO2 will boost crop production in certain areas. There might be some occasions where higher temperatures will enhance some yields in normally cold areas, but if the warmth comes with other extreme weather events, the benefits will be diminished. It also turns out that plants can’t really take full advantage of high CO2 levels. Basically, there is no real “up-side” of climate change for farming.
Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas‘ Editor-In-Chief, discusses the topic of the smaller homes living movement, and how downsizing helps you go green with Shay Solomon, author of Little House on a Small Planet and Co-Founder of The Small House Society.
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Lots of people in America are worried about their food - usually not about having enough food, but mostly about things that might be in their food that could potentially hurt them or their children. People also worry about the environmental impacts of food production. At one level I’m glad that people are engaged in this way and I do believe that there are legitimate concerns. I happen to think that some of the fear about food is misplaced.
I believe that much of this fear stems from a limited understanding of toxicology, molecular genetics, and also what farming is actually about today. Very few Americans have any real contact with farming. Frankly, some of this fear is also driven by the activities of businesses and organizations with a vested economic interest in alarming people.
I’ve been working as an agricultural scientist for 32 years. I’ve had the opportunity to learn about lots of crops grown all over the world. I’ve been involved with all sorts of different technologies. I’ve seen huge changes in agriculture over time. So from all of this experience, do I worry about anything to do with food? Yes, absolutely I do worry! But my list of worries is a little different from the norm
Dr. Norman Borlaug passed away this weekend at 95. He left behind an amazing legacy of contribution to humanity. It is likely that he saved more human lives than any other person in history. He did it by developing far more productive wheat than had ever been grown. His “short stature” wheat had shorter, thicker stems so that it could hold bigger heads of grain that would otherwise “lodge” (collapse over on to the ground where it can’t be harvested). It was also resistant to the devastating wheat disease called “Stem Rust.” This wheat ended up feeding millions of people around the world, particularly in Pakistan and India in the 1960s. Borlaug’s breakthrough was a key part of the “Green Revolution” and it did much to address the hunger and poverty issues of the time. For this, and his life-time of additional work Bourlag recieved the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Metal . Only Martin Luther King, Elie Wiesel, Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa have received all of these commendations. He was also awarded the National Medal of Science and a host of other awards from around the world. There is an excellent article about the life and career of this remarkable man in the Des Moines Register.
The Image above is corn growing in Zimbabwe.
There was a scholarly article published late last year by Dr. Robert Paarlberg entitled “The Ethics of Modern Agriculture.” I would encourage anyone concerned about both the environment and about feeding people to read it. It raises some important questions about the ethics of even well intentioned anti-technology activism.
Paarlberg is a professor at Wellesley and also an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard. He has no ties to agricultural interests or technology companies, but he has spent a lot of time thinking about the ethics of opposition to technologies that could help feed the poor people of the world. His book “Starved for Science” is a detailed review of how the precautionary principle thinking of the rich countries (particularly in Europe) has largely kept agricultural technologies out of Africa including ones that would help feed poor people there.
Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas‘ Editor-In-Chief, talks about sustainable forestry management with Katie Miller, Communications Director for the Forest Stewardship Council.
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The World Agroforestry Centre has recently released a paper titled ” Trees on Farm: Analysis of Global Extent and Geographical Patterns of Agroforestry.” The researchers used five global geodata sets to estimate the percent tree cover on 22 million square kilometers of agricultural land around the world. They were surprised to find that nearly half of that land had 10% or more tree cover (which is considered “significant” from an agroforestry point of view). The area involved is vast - as large as the Amazon basin.
Even for North America, the percentages were surprisingly high (39% over 10% cover, 17% over 30%). Values in Europe were similar. The highest levels are in central America (98% above 10% cover), South America (81%), and Southeast Asia (82%). Overall, the lowest tree cover is in the most arid areas, but even there >20% of the farmland has 10% tree cover.
If you picture a grain farmer out tending a field, you might imagine someone sitting on the metal seat of a tractor like the one in the picture above, moving slowly across a field - perhaps the farmer has a straw hat. That image seems attractive as long as you are not the farmer. Fortunately, this isn’t the real situation in the developed world or we wouldn’t get anyone in our rapidly aging population to do full-time farming on the multiple thousand-acre farms that are typical of a modern, Midwestern family farm.
Today, a progressive farmer will typically be working in an enclosed, air-conditioned cab with surround sound, a cell phone, and an internet connection for tracking commodity futures or catching up on email. Increasingly, the tractor is driving itself by computer and GPS except for occasional intervention. I’ve carried on a number of protracted interviews with farmers who were in just this setting. I know one farmer that ran much of his state senate campaign from a tractor or combine. These new, sophisticated, farm vehicles are not just about keeping the farmer comfortable and multi-tasking. They are important tools for making farming more sustainable.
Sustainablog
Since July 2003, sustainablog has been providing information on environmental and economic sustainability, green and sustainable business, and environmental politics. The blog regularly features environmental leaders, experts in alternative energy and green technology, and real people trying to lighten their environmental footprints.
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