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December 14, 2011
· The young farmers of ‘generation organic’
· Accelerating adoption of ag technology
· How soil temps wake weeds in spring
·
At this
library you check out seeds
· Turning algae into jet fuel and food
The young farmers of ‘generation organic’
(npr) – For decades, as young people have been leaving farms behind, the average age of the American farmer has been rising. The last time the government counted farmers, in 2002, the average farmer was 55-years-old.
But there's a new surge of youthful vigor into American agriculture — at least in the corner of it devoted to organic, local food. Thousands of young people who've never farmed before are trying it out.
Some 250 of them gathered recently at a gorgeous estate in
the Hudson River
Some of these young farmers already have their own farms. Some are apprentices, working on more established farms for a year or two. And others are still just thinking about it. But the overwhelming majority of farmers here at this conference want to farm without chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
They were there to learn skills — from seminars on soil fertility, handling sheep, and how to find affordable land — and just as importantly, to meet each other. In the evening, they played music and danced.
They represent a new breed of farmer. Very few of them grew up on farms. Most of them went to college. And now, they want to grow vegetables, or feed pigs.
I had to ask them: "Why?"
Some talk about what they hope to accomplish.
"It was born out of a concern for the
environment," says Brian Bates, who plans to work at a farm in northern
Others say that they simply enjoy the work, the style of agrarian life, and the connection to food.
"I feel lost when I'm not farming, when I'm not out in
the field. It's where I find the most peace and harmony in my life," says
Liz Moran, who helps manage Quail Hill Farm in the eastern end of
"When I look around, and you're amongst the plants and
the sunshine – that's my office, that's where I want to be," said Rodger
Phillips, who grows food on an urban farm in
Others talk about the satisfaction of doing something
practical, creating something valuable. "Having a skill was really
important to me. Having studied political science, I wanted to do something
that was productive, that was real. To have a real skill, and be able to
provide my family, my community, a vital element," says Kristin Carbone,
who runs Radix Farm in Upper Marlboro,
And then there was Lindsey Shute. "How did I get into farming? Because I started dating a farmer!" she says with a laugh.
This is an idealistic crowd; nobody says that they're doing it to make money. Some describe their farming as a kind of protest against the idea that success means a big paycheck, or as a protest against an economy dominated by big corporations.
Lindsey Shute's husband Ben has been running his own farm in
Nobody knows exactly how many young farmers like this there are. They certainly don't produce more than a tiny sliver of the country's food. But they do seem to be part of a real social movement. Organic farmers who used to spend part of the winter recruiting workers for the next summer now are turning people away.
This conference, which started four years ago, sells out. This year, it sold out months ahead of time.
But along with the enthusiasm, I heard uncertainty and even some anxiety — about making enough money, or whether they were quite ready to settle in one place for good. Many said that their parents wish they were doing something else – something less risky, and better-paying.
It made me wonder whether they'll really be able to stick with it.
So for a little perspective on this generation, I looked up
a real old-timer of the local, organic food movement: Jim Crawford, who runs
New Morning Farm, in south-central
When Crawford looks at today's new generation of would-be farmers, he sees himself, when he was younger. "I had exactly the same things in my head forty years ago," says. "Exactly the same."
In 1972, Crawford was in law school in
"I didn't really want to go back to law school in the
city, but I knew I had to," he recalls. "So I went back, and I walked
into law school ... and I said, 'I'm just not going to do this! I'm going to go
the other way!' So I went back out outside, and went back out [to
Farming — the work, and the independence, and the connection to something as important and real as soil and food — was the one thing that he wanted to throw himself into. And he's been doing it ever since. But it wasn't always a big happy folk dance.
"I can remember feeling kind of desperate, and having many failures, a lot of failures, in the first couple of years of growing crops and not really knowing what I was doing," he says.
But there's one thing he had, and it's a big reason why he's still farming. He loved the business side of it: finding customers and making a living on his own.
That sense of farming as a business is probably the biggest thing the young farmers have to learn, he says. It's what he preaches to the young apprentices who come to his farm to work. (He's had more than 200 such apprentices over the years.)
Ideals are great, he tells them. "But if you're going to stick with it, and expect to make a living at it, you've got to be realistic about the business aspects: Money, and managing money, and borrowing money, and all the things that a business person has to do. And you have to accept that, and learn to like that – somewhat, at least – and be willing to be good at that."
That may mean compromises, he says. Maybe it means burning a little more fossil fuel, so you can get your vegetables to a city, where people pay higher prices.
That's OK, Crawford says. Making tradeoffs, but holding onto what's most important - that's what growing up is all about.
Accelerating adoption of ag technology
(PHYSORG.com) – Research shows that it takes about eight years from the time public research funds are invested in technology development to the time the technology is first implemented. In the agricultural sector it can take as long as 15 years before full adoption by stakeholders occurs. Because many technologies in the agricultural world become obsolete in 15 years, it becomes increasingly important to find ways to move technology more rapidly from research to adoption.
In a study published in HortTechnology, Katie Ellis, Tara Auxt Baugher, and Karen Lewis report on an information technology survey that was designed to better understand concerns and design effective outreach methods for the tree fruit industry. The survey was part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative project titled Comprehensive Automation for Specialty Crops (CASC). "The project aims to accelerate technology adoption by analyzing its return on investment and identifying and mitigating barriers to adoption", said Ellis, corresponding author of the study. "Low adoption rates are largely the product of skepticism, which can lead to weaknesses in the commercialization process and affect future research and product development."
The authors analyzed survey responses obtained from
attendees at tree fruit meetings in the Pacific northwestern and eastern
Orchard owners and managers identified fuel costs, labor regulations, labor costs, insurance costs, and market conditions as the most important external influences on their businesses. Water availability/cost and quarantine regulations were least important. These responses have implications for future research and outreach efforts; studies that emphasize economic analyses with evidence of increased returns and workforce productivity will be important.
Another survey finding supported previous research showing
that growers place a high value on ''in my backyard'' field trials and are more
likely to adopt innovations that are developed or tested locally. Survey
responses from tree fruit growers indicated a desire to see technological
benefits through on-farm trials, particularly in the eastern
"CASC members designed this project to bridge the gap between developer and end user. The survey data will help the project team better address grower concerns and uncertainty on a regional and national level, thereby improving adoption speed and rates after CASC-developed technologies are rolled out", the authors concluded.
More information: The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS HortTechnology electronic journal web site: http://horttech.as … ct/20/6/1043
Provided by American Society for Horticultural Science
How soil temps wake weeds in spring
(Science
Daily) – Dormant seeds in the soil detect and respond to seasonal changes
in soil temperature by changing their sensitivity to plant hormones, new
research by the
This sensitivity alters the depth of dormancy, indicating to the seed when it is the right time of year to germinate and grow.
The seeds of common weeds can survive in the soil in a dormant state for years, in some cases decades, spelling issues for food security when they emerge to compete with crops.
New DEFRA-funded research by the
The new insights, which come from combining modern molecular biology with traditional seed ecology, could be of long-term help in reducing the use of herbicide on farms.
It is also of interest to those working to ensure biodiversity by understanding how dormancy and germination in wild plants is regulated.
Despite the importance of dormancy cycling in nature, very little is known about its regulation at the molecular level.
Professor Bill Finch-Savage and Dr Steve Footitt
in the
They found that gene sets related to dormancy and germination are highly sensitive to seasonal changes in soil temperature.
A balance between the hormones abscisic
acid (
One set of genes is regulated by
Using an Arabidopsis strain whose seedlings emerge in late
summer and early autumn, they found that as the soil warms up, seeds become
less sensitive to
Once dormancy starts to recede, increased sensitivity to light, nitrate and the differences between day and night temperatures play a bigger role in signalling that it is the right time to germinate.
Dr Footitt said: "Many will have seen how the amount of weeds in their garden differs with the weather from year to year.
"Understanding how this happens will help us to predict the impact that future climate change will have on our native flora and the weeds that compete with the crops we rely on for food."
"Our research sheds new light on how genetics and the environment interact in the dormancy cycling process.
"By looking at seeds over an annual cycle we now have a clearer idea of how seeds sense and react to changes in the environment throughout the seasons so they know the best time to emerge into plants."
The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Professor Finch-Savage and Dr Footitt have been awarded a BBSRC grant to investigate further how climate has an impact on dormancy cycling and how genetics and the environment interact in the dormancy cycling process.
At this library you check out seeds
(KVOA.com)
It's the brainchild of Native Seeds/Search, a local non-profit that has advocated seed conservation and sustainability for nearly three decades.
The organization also has one of the world's best bioregional seed banks.
Now the nonprofit is announcing the launch of
It will function much the same as a book library.
People will be able to "check out" seeds, grow them, then keep a few plants in the ground to go to seed, and once that's done, they're asked to return the saved seed to the library, ideally twice as much as was borrowed.
The hope is that as the process continues year after year that the seeds in the library will become more productive and hardy by adapting to local growing conditions.
Native Seeds/Search says the process is taking off across the country, with more than 30 seed libraries currently underway.
"In the age of Monsanto and climate change, seed libraries are one of our best hopes for communities to really sustain their own local food production," says NS/S Executive Director Bill McDorman. "Communities are taking ownership of their seeds and expanding biodiversity and self-reliance in the process."
Turning algae into jet fuel and food
(azcentral.com) – One of the most primitive forms of life on Earth may hold the promise of a high-tech solution to some of the globe's most vexing problems.
Heliae, a technology-development
company based in
"It's easy to do in the lab," said Heliae President and CEO Dan Simon. The trick, he said, is developing the integrated processes to grow, harvest and refine algae products on an industrial scale.
The company's business plan is to develop and license the technology that allows the sustainable, large-scale production of fuel, food and other biochemically valuable materials from algae, said Craig Johnson,Heliae's chief financial officer. Other than to test procedures and demonstrate processes, Heliae doesn't plan to market those commodities itself.
"We are trying to be the innovators and the inventors of a technology," Johnson said. "You can grow algae all day long but you have to make it efficiently to be profitable."
The lab holds all manner of paraphernalia needed to develop, analyze and test algae strains -- panels of bubbly, green liquids, centrifuges, shelves of chemicals, compound microscopes and jars of refined fuels made from algae oils that are ready to be analyzed.
The lab is essentially a demonstration facility, said Luis Acosta,Heliae's production manager.
"We go from Petri dish all the way to jet fuel on this site," he said.
Commercial-scale testing is done out back, behind the company's lab and office space.
Frank Mars, whose great-great-grandfather founded the Mars candy company, is the co-founder of Heliae and serves on the board of directors.
Although he also serves on the Mars company's board of directors and runs the Mars Symbiosciences division, he said his investments in Heliae are a private matter, not associated with the company.
Mars said his interest in sustainable agriculture and energy stems from his being a member of the family that owns one of the world's largest food businesses.
"We only have one planet," Mars said, noting that the world's 7 billion people are currently using the globe's resources at an unsustainable rate. "There are no more raw materials, no more land. Algae allows us the opportunity to rebalance that equation a little bit."
Mars ticked off the resources needed to grow algae and their costs: sunlight -- free, waste water from municipal treatment plants -- free, and carbon dioxide from gas-powered plants -- also free.
"So why not turn (waste) water and sunlight into energy and food and fuel?" he said.
Heliae's initial goal is to produce enough materials for such niche markets as food additives for farm animals and for aquaculture applications while continuing to develop and test industrial processes.
Its long-term goal is to be the world's leading source for algae technology by designing, building and operating algae facilities around the globe, by licensing algae production processes and providing technology services to commercial enterprises.
Algae is far more efficient than other crops commonly used to make biofuels, Johnson said. Soybeans, corn and sugarcanes are seasonal crops that yield, at most, around 600 gallons per acre per year, he said, and also involve intensive farming techniques.
He and Simon expect Heliae will soon be able to produce 20 times that amount.
"All you need to grow algae is sunlight, water and CO2," Johnson said. "You also need a little bit of land, but it doesn't have to be good land. You need water, but it doesn't have to be good water."
Their immediate production goal is to be able to deliver 10,000 gallons of fuel per acre per year.
Johnson estimated that the company is anywhere from three to seven years away from generating revenue.
Simon envisions
In addition to plenty of sunshine and affordable non-agricultural land, he cited the town's commitment to fostering high-tech enterprises, its highly educated workforce, strong academic ties and a business-friendly environment.
Heliae has 62 employees; nearly half are engineers.
The company, founded in August 2008, grew out of a
partnership with Science Foundation
Heliae has raised around $25 million in investment capital since 2008.
The challenge now, Mars said, is making the transition from a venture to a business.
While a healthy return on investment is always important, that's not what drives his interest in developing algae as a source of fuel and food.
"Profitability by itself is not the endgame," Mars said. "It's proving the business model can build a whole new industry. We want (investors) who are worried more about the future of their kids and grandkids than just making a buck."
Algae productivity
Crops can be used to make biofuel. Here are some of the most common, and the gallons each can produce from 1 acre of marginal land, according to Heliae:
Soybeans: 62.
Corn: 440.
Switch grass: 562.
Palm: 650.
Sugarcane: 700.
Pond algae: 3,000.
Heliae algae grown in a photo-bioreactor: 12,000.
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