Amsterdam Mobilizes for a Clean, Prosperous Future

Resilience

Amsterdam Mobilizes for a Clean, Prosperous Future

By John J. Berger, originally published by Solutions Journal, June 9, 2017

Amsterdam has ambitious aspirations to slash its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), phase out fossil fuels, and usher in a clean energy future.

The city’s sustainability vision is panoramic in scope, encompassing the management of public space as well as how energy, water, and material resources can be used more efficiently.

City leaders are convinced that the same steps that Amsterdam must take to reduce and ultimately eliminate fossil fuels will also improve air quality, reduce traffic, make buildings more comfortable, and render the workforce more productive, all while saving citizens money.

As its leaders are drawn toward a vision of Amsterdam as a clean, prosperous, and sustainable city, they are also motivated by a desire to avoid the problems that fossil fuel dependency entail. These include air and water pollution, price volatility, and limited fuel reserves, hence the looming threat of eventual fuel shortages and price increases.

The Netherlands has been drawing down its once-abundant natural gas supplies for some time. It is projected that the country will have to start importing natural gas by 2025, as will much of the European Union.

In Groningen province, where most of the Netherlands’ natural gas is extracted, gas wells are being blamed for severe earthquakes over the past four years. Groningen residents have demanded a halt to gas production. If that happens, the Netherlands would become more dependent on Russian natural gas, a dependency which is politically unpopular.

In Amsterdam: A Different Energy. 2040 Energy Strategy,¹ the city outlines its strategy for becoming sustainable by 2040, and for cutting GHG emissions 75 percent from 1990 levels. If Amsterdam succeeds, its emissions goal would surpass the European Union’s 60 percent emissions-reduction goal for 2040.

Municipal officials see the city’s 2040 GHG target as an important milestone that must be attained if the city is to reach its even more exacting goal of an 80 to 90 percent reduction in GHG by 2050. Achieving that, however, will be a lengthy process requiring broad cooperation, patience, and perseverance.

That’s one reason city officials have made it a practice for almost a decade to reach out to the business sector, government, and civil society groups to build a broad social consensus in favor of the city’s new energy and climate strategy.

So how did Amsterdam formulate its ambitious climate and energy planning programs, stealing a march on many other cities?

Origins of the City’s Sustainability Strategy

Amsterdam has had a municipal climate agency since 2006, long before most other cities. With that, the city also embarked on its first intensive studies of climate and energy. Those studies culminated in Amsterdam: A Different Energy. 2040 Energy Strategy, published in 2010.

Over the next four years, the city council and vice mayors led the city in creating and implementing a clean energy strategy that included goals for energy efficiency, as well as for solar and wind power.

During a wide-ranging interview in Amsterdam, Peter Paul Ekker, spokesman for Amsterdam Alderman Abdeluheb Choho, Vice Mayor for Sustainability, discussed the city’s ambitious sustainability goals and why Amsterdam is so receptive to innovative climate-protection programs.

A Culture of Openness

Ekker believes Amsterdam has high sustainability aspirations in part because, “there’s a lot of creativity and entrepreneurship” in Amsterdam, and also because the city has universities, a high-tech community, and “people with bright ideas.”

“If you come with a new idea” in Amsterdam, Ekker explains, “everybody is open to it. This is also why the city council has quite unanimously supported working on climate change and climate mitigation.”

Since 2014, the city has begun to hit its stride, scaling up programs and, according to Ekker, focusing on getting results across the board while developing and refining policy instruments. To an observer, the city also appears to be blessed with competent, dedicated leadership.

Securing Popular Support

A big reason why climate mitigation has strong public support in Amsterdam, Ekker explains, is that the municipality rallies support for climate mitigation not by trying to debate the impacts of climate change or scare the public, but by calling its climate policies “sustainability measures” and underscoring their economic and public health benefits. “Our analysis is that the public in general doesn’t need convincing on the need for mitigation measures,” he says. “But it does need examples and solutions on how to become a sustainable economy.”

The city therefore talks about what is technologically possible and cost-effective along with the co-benefits of sound climate policies, including cleaner air, fewer respiratory problems, and a more livable environment.

Thus, for example, the city’s policies on electric vehicles (EVs) are not specifically climate change-driven, Ekker notes. Support for those policies is borne of concern about public health. Of course, the net results benefit the climate, too.

Moving away from fossil fuels also has real economic benefits, and “we are not afraid to celebrate that,” Ekker says. These benefits include attracting large companies, like Tesla, to Amsterdam. The electric auto maker now has its European headquarters in the city, and Ekker attributes this in part to the fact that, “we are front-runners in electric cars and electric transport.”

Carrots and Sticks for Sustainable Mobility

Amsterdam is also discouraging the use of inefficient fossil fuel vehicles by establishing restricted environmental zones in which older, less efficient vehicles are banned. “Dirty trucks, dirty cars, [and] motorcycles in the future, will not be allowed to enter the city anymore,” Ekker asserts.

Apart from imposing progressively tighter regulations on polluting vehicles, the city also provides incentives to encourage the switch to EVs.

“Public transport is going to be totally electric by 2025,” according to Ekker. Some businesses have already opted to have their delivery trucks drive to the edge of the city using fossil fuels and then transfer to an EV, as it’s cheaper to enter the city in an EV. This, Ekker believes, could be a model for other cities.

The city is also currently changing from diesel to electric buses, and has 40 electric buses on order for delivery within three years. Ultimately, all of Amsterdam’s public transport will be emission-free.

By 2025, all the city’s taxis will also have to be electric. The city’s taxi fleet will have gradually worn out by then, and will be replaced by electric taxis. “Technology is coming to our aid,” Ekker observes. “In two or three years, you’re going to have a fine Tesla for US $35,000 [that will be] comparable to any taxicab that you buy now.” EVs, however, will be cheaper to maintain and operate than fuel-burning cars.

Amsterdam also has a subsidy program for EVs, providing €5,000-6,000 to a business buying an electric van, and up to €40,000 to a business buying a large, heavy electric truck.

In addition, EV owners in Amsterdam receive tax credits and avoid the increasingly onerous regulations being applied to fossil fuel vehicles in the city. In fact, those with the dirtiest vehicles are not granted city parking permits at all.

Finally, fuel costs in the Netherlands and Europe are far higher than in the U.S., which makes EVs even more attractive economically. Gasoline in the Netherlands now costs US$1.80 per liter, or US$6.80 per gallon.

Moreover, as part of a city noise abatement policy, commercial vehicles are not allowed to come into the city center on Sundays, unless they are electric, as EVs make less noise than fossil fuel vehicles.

So, while climate change may be a significant factor, what truly motivates people to make the switch to EVs in Amsterdam and the Netherlands? “Even if you don’t believe in climate change,” Ekker notes wryly, “you still can believe in a great Tesla car.”

Clean Power

The city plans to increase the number of households with rooftop solar generators from 5,000 to 80,000 by 2020, while it expands the city’s wind power generating capacity from 67 MW to 85 MW. The challenge Amsterdam faces in this regard is that whereas many residents are interested in solar, relatively few have suitable roofs to support rooftop generators.

The city has therefore been working with the owners of large factories and commercial buildings to arrange for them to lease their roofs to residents for solar energy generation. The city has even arranged for the “site”ing of residential solar collectors on the roof of a metro station.

The people of Amsterdam are also solicitous of their next generation. “All schools will have green roofs, solar panels, [and] good insulation,” according to Ekker. Green roofs insulate buildings, reducing heating and cooling needs. They thereby improve air quality along with occupants’ comfort. “It’s a win-win situation.”

Simultaneously, the city plans on becoming more flood-proof with the help of green roofs and better storm water management.

The Circular Economy

Amsterdam became a strong proponent of the “circular economy” once the city realized that it could replace a third of the building materials it used every year by recovering and reusing old building materials. “But to do that,” Ekker says, “you need to build smart,” by which he means constructing buildings so that they can be more easily recovered once the building has reached the end of its useful lifespan.

In addition, all concrete that the city uses in the future is going to be recycled. That will be “a huge CO₂reduction,” Ekker says. In contracting with developers for buildings in Amsterdam, 30 percent of a prospective project’s rating is based on its sustainability score. High-risk projects get loans from the city’s new €50 million sustainability fund.

Amsterdam is already reusing municipal waste to co-generate heat and power for residents in the northern and western quadrants of the city. The waste is collected and delivered to a central incinerator with advanced pollution controls. Heat from the plant is distributed to households in large insulated pipes, replacing individual gas furnaces.

Excess heat from a gas-fired power plant on the east side of Amsterdam in Diemen serves residents in the city’s southern and eastern quadrants. Meanwhile, the city plans to create a region-wide heat network, extending from its Tata Steel smelter on the North Sea shore in Ijmuiden, 25 km west of Amsterdam to the city of Almere, 25 km east of Amsterdam.

In total, Amsterdam plans to have 102,000 homes on district heating by 2020 and 240,000 by 2040. Geothermal heat sources and surplus heat from urban greenhouses where flowers and vegetables are grown will provide heat throughout the region.

The city also strongly supports recycling and has ambitious city-wide recycling goals. Amsterdam seeks to more than double its 2015 recycling rate by separating 65 percent of urban waste by 2020 into resource flows of glass, paper, plastics, and even textiles.

City leaders believe that accomplishing its climate, energy, and recycling goals will make Amsterdam a more prosperous, cleaner, quieter, safer, more pleasant, and more affordable place to live. These improvements will also help make Amsterdam a more socially diverse, inclusive, and sustainable city.

Amsterdam has built a public consensus favoring its ambitious energy and climate program by emphasizing its health and economic benefits. Rather than focusing on the problem of climate change and emphasizing the severity of climate impacts, city leaders focus on the opportunities that ambitious solutions offer, particularly the money that could be saved or earned.

As Ekker says, “Solutions are where we can make an impact.”

Acknowledgements

Editorial assistance by Joanna Jiang.

As Climate Change Threatens Food Supplies, Seed Saving is an Ancient Act of Resilience

Resilience

As Climate Change Threatens Food Supplies, Seed Saving is an Ancient Act of Resilience

By Sarah van Gelder, originally published by YES! magazine June 9, 2017

On Feb. 26, 2008, a $9-million underground seed vault began operating deep in the permafrost on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, just 810 miles from the North Pole. This high-tech Noah’s Ark for the world’s food varieties was intended to assure that, even in a worst-case scenario, our irreplaceable heritage of food seeds would remain safely frozen.

Less than 10 years after it opened, the facility flooded. The seeds are safe; the water only entered a passageway. Still, as vast areas of permafrost melt, the breach raises serious questions about the security of the seeds, and whether a centralized seed bank is really the best way to safeguard the world’s food supply.

Meanwhile, a much older approach to saving the world’s heritage of food varieties is making a comeback.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, a group of volunteers in the northern Montana city of Great Falls met in the local library to package seeds for their newly formed seed exchange, and to share their passion for gardening and food security.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen to our climate in the future,” said Alice Kestler, a library specialist. “Hopefully, as the years go by, we can develop local cultivars that are really suited to the local climate here.”

For millennia, people the world over have selected the best edible plants, saved the seeds, and planted and shared them in sophisticated, locally adapted breeding projects that created the vast array of foods we rely on today. This dance of human intelligence, plant life, pollinators, and animals is key to how human communities became prosperous and took root across the planet.

The Great Falls Library Seed Exchange is continuing that tradition even while a modern agribusiness model works to reduce the genetic diversity of our food stocks and consolidate control over the world’s seeds. Six seed companies now control three quarters of the seed market. In the years between 1903 and 1983, the world lost 93 percent of its food seed varieties, according to a study by the Rural Advancement Foundation International.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that giant agribusiness companies have no interest in the vast varieties and diverse ways people breed plants. It is hard to get rich off of an approach based on the distributed genius of people everywhere. Such a model doesn’t scale or centralize well. It is intensely democratic. Many people contribute to a common pool of knowledge and genetic diversity. Many people share the benefits.

Making big profits requires scarcity, exclusive knowledge, and the power to deny others the benefits. In this case, that means the appropriation of the knowledge built up over generations, coupled with the legal framework to patent seed varieties and punish those who fail to comply.

Especially in a time of climate change, though, genetic diversity is what we need to assure food security and resilience.

The Great Falls Library Seed Exchange is on the second floor of the library, which sits less than a mile from the Missouri River. Climb the brick building’s big, central staircase, and you can’t miss the brightly painted seed catalog. Borrowers are encouraged, but not required, to save some of the seeds and return them to the library for others to plant.

The exchange began just over a year ago, and is one of 500-some seed libraries worldwide. It sources its seeds from local organic farms and distant companies that specialize in plants that can grow in the rugged terrain of the northern plains, as well as heirloom varieties that have proven their worth over generations of seed saving. Locals also bring in their favorite varieties to share.

Each grower chooses which of each variety to save for seed, and those choices shape future availability.

“Since we have such a short growing climate here, getting seeds from plants that fruit early is really advantageous,” Kestler said. Some growers, though, select for the biggest fruit; others for the best-tasting. This built-in diversity helps to secure a resilient food supply.

“The seed in its essence is all of the past evolution of the Earth, the evolution of human history, and the potential for future evolution,” author and seed saver Vandana Shiva told me when I interviewed her in 2013. “The seed is the embodiment of culture because culture shaped the seed with careful selection. That is a convergence of human intelligence and nature’s intelligence.”

The Norwegian doomsday vault makes an important statement about the irreplaceable value of the genetic diversity of our planet, and it may prove to be an important failsafe in the event of disaster. But the time-honored process of saving and sharing seeds is dynamic. It naturally adapts to changing conditions, like climate change, and keeps the power with people everywhere to make choices that assure local resilience.

“Seed saving is such an important political act in this time,” Shiva said. “Save the seeds, have a community garden, create an exchange, do everything that it takes to protect and rejuvenate the seed.”

Two Scientists, Two Different Approaches To Saving Bees From Poison Dust

NPR

Two Scientists, Two Different Approaches To Saving Bees From Poison Dust

Dan Charles May 27, 2017

A tractor pulls a planter while distributing corn seed on a field in Malden, Ill. Two scientists agree that pesticide-laden dust from planting equipment kills bees. But they’re proposing different solutions, because they disagree about whether the pesticides are useful to farmers.

Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It’s planting time in America. Farmers are spending long days on their tractors, pulling massive planters across millions of acres of farmland, dropping corn and soybean seeds into the ground.

Most of those seeds have been coated with pesticides known as neonicotinoids, or neonics for short. And despite attempts by pesticide makers to reduce this, some of that coating is getting rubbed off the seeds and blown into the air. That dust is settling on the ground, on ponds, and on vegetation nearby.

Honeybees and wild bees, looking for food, will encounter traces of the pesticides, and some will be harmed. They may become disoriented and bring less food back to their colony. Many may die.

Several years ago, Christian Krupke, an insect specialist at Purdue University in Indiana, became one of the first researchers to discover that rogue dust was wiping out bee colonies. At first, Art Schaafsma, an entomologist at the University of Guelph, in Canada, didn’t believe it was true.

“Unfortunately — myself included — in the early days there was a lot of skepticism,” Schaafsma says. He regrets that reaction now. “We do have a problem, and we’ve got to fix it,” he tells me.

There are a lot of things that Krupke and Schaafsma disagree about when it comes to neonicotinoids. Krupke believes — while Schaafsma does not — that bees may also be harmed by exposure to smaller quantities of neonicotinoids that show up in the leaves and pollen of plants grown from coated seeds, or even in wildflowers that grow in or near fields where the crops are planted.

They do agree that the dust is a problem. They just have different ideas about how to fix it.

Schaafsma’s solution is sitting in a garage on the Ridgetown Campus of the University of Guelph. It’s a shiny new piece of farm equipment, a seed planter that Schaafsma has taken apart and re-engineered.

Like most modern planters, it uses air pressure to move the seeds from a storage bin through tubes and into the soil. Schaafsma points to the end of one pipe. “This is the air intake, OK? See the problem already?

That pipe is close to the ground. When a tractor pulls this planter across a field, dust will get sucked into this opening, along with air. Inside the planting mechanism, “the air is rushing past that seed, it’s laden with dirt, and it’s acting like a sandblaster,” Schaafsma says. That dirt grinds a little bit of the neonicotinoid coating from the seed, and then carries the pesticide dust with it as it exhausts from the planter, straight up into the air.

That’s normally how the planter works. But Schaafsma has made some changes on this one, outfitting it with special dust traps, similar to high-quality vacuum cleaner filters. “We’re probably filtering 99 percent of what comes out of the exhaust,” he says.

Schaafsma thinks that this equipment, if installed on all seed planters, would eliminate most of the risk to bees from neonicotinoid-treated seeds.

Schaafsma has been testing his theory by setting up honeybee hives near corn fields that were planted using his filter-outfitted equipment, monitoring these hives and measuring their honey production. “We just want to demonstrate that it can be done — that bees and corn can co-exist,” he says.

Schaafsma wants co-existence because he wants farmers to be able to use neonicotinoid-treated seed. “I see them as valuable tools, which should be handled with care,” he says.

This, however, is where Schaafsma and Christian Krupke part ways. Krupke is not convinced that farmers are getting much benefit — if any — from the seed coatings. In most cases, Krupke says, the pesticides don’t appear to be worth the money that farmers are spending.

So his solution is even simpler: Stop using them so much. At the very least, he says, seed companies should give farmers the option of planting seeds without neonicotinoids on them. Right now, it’s often difficult to find such untreated seeds.

This month, Krupke and some colleagues published two scientific papers with evidence to support his case. The first study, conducted by researchers at seven Midwestern universities, concluded that neonicotinoid-treated soybean seeds performed no better than untreated seeds in fending off aphids, one of the major pests that the seed treatments are supposed to control. According to the study, farmers would be better off leaving their seeds untreated, monitoring their fields, and resorting to conventional spraying of pesticides when the aphids attacked.

In another study, Krupke found that the seed treatments weren’t of much benefit to corn yields, either. In some fields, pesticide-treated seed performed better, in other fields it did worse. Combining the results from all the sites, the average yield from the treated seed was about 2 percent higher, but Krupke says that difference is not statistically or economically significant — certainly not the kind of clear effect that would justify its use on nearly all the corn in the country.

Companies that sell seeds and neonicotinoid pesticides have attacked similar studies in the past, arguing that farmers clearly do see benefits from the seed treatments, because they’re happy to pay for them. Other researchers, including Schaafsma, have reported that treated seed has produced higher yields, with the increase ranging from 1.5 to 5 percent.

Krupke says he’d like to do more extensive studies comparing treated and untreated seed, but companies that control the seed now are refusing to provide samples for him to use.

Krupke says that there’s growing interest among farmers in plant seeds that are not treated with neonicotinoids — if only they could find such seeds.

Schaafsma, for his part, thinks it will be easier to stop dust pollution from seed planters than to convince farmers not to use pesticide-coated seeds. This is something that farmers clearly would like to do, he says, and it’s technically feasible. Bayer CropScience, the big chemical company that sells most of the neonic seed coatings, has developed its own version of a dust trap that could be installed on planters.

The problem is, none of the big farm-equipment companies are offering the dust traps for sale. These companies that make planting equipment, such as Case, Kinze, and John Deere, have installed shields that direct the neonic-laden exhaust down toward the ground, rather than into the air, but Schaafsma says that’s not good enough.

“The only people who don’t recognize [the problem] well enough yet are the equipment manufacturers,” he says.

Trump Wants To Defund Programs That Help Small Farmers Survive

Joseph Erbentraut HuffPost May 28, 2017

When Marshall Bartlett describes Como — the northern Mississippi town of 1,200 where he lives and operates a farm that’s been in his family for 150 years — he says the statistics speak for themselves.

Among the Panola County town’s residents, 35 percent report income below the poverty line, far exceeding the statewide poverty rate — which itself has been cited as the highest in the nation. And the county’s unemployment rate of 6 percent outpaces state and national numbers.

“It’s all pretty grim,” Bartlett admitted.

Bartlett says his father had encouraged him and his siblings to not pursue careers in agriculture, and he initially heeded that advice — earning a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies at Dartmouth College and working with AmeriCorps to rebuild the homes of Hurricane Katrina victims in neighboring Louisiana, among other pursuits.

But about four years ago, the now-28-year-old returned to the farm with a lofty aim: to not only keep the farm in the family but also bring economic opportunities back to the place where he grew up.

The result was Home Place Pastures. Bartlett and his team grow and process pasture-raised pork, beef and lamb with a keen eye on humane handling and environmentally friendly practices. The farm now processes about 25 hogs, five steers and 20 lambs and goats a week, bringing in about $30,000 in revenue. And Bartlett has 12 farm employees, about half of whom live right in Como.

“We’ve gotten here in a little over three years, which is pretty crazy,” Bartlett told HuffPost. “I’m really proud to have built this here.”

Though a lot of hard work contributed to that success, Bartlett also credits two U.S. Department of Agriculture rural development grants that helped make the farm’s steady growth possible.

In 2014, Bartlett applied for and received a USDA value-added producer grant (VAPG) of about $50,000 to help finance the farm’s expansion of its pork business, allowing it to supply products to area restaurants, retailers and consumers by helping to finance refrigerated delivery equipment. A year later, the farm received a second $50,000 grant to help establish its free-range lamb operation.

Bartlett doubts the farm would be in the position it is today without the federal help.

“We were able to handle these upfront expenses without borrowing a ton of money,” he said. “Without that injection of those grants, we wouldn’t have been able to do all this.”

The VAPG program was created under the Clinton administration in 2000 to reward farmers, particularly beginners, who were working to diversify farm income streams by creating products and marketing opportunities that added resilience against volatile commodity prices. The program awarded $45 million in grants to 325 producers last year.

This kind of support, advocates say, is especially important when many U.S. farmers are struggling with falling income and rising debt, as well as the extreme weather challenges associated with climate change.

And yet the program is on the chopping block.

As part of a proposed 21 percent reduction in the USDA’s overall spending, President Donald Trump’s budget plan calls for eliminating the funding for VAPG and other rural development programs under the department’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service.

The programs were deemed “duplicative and underperforming” in the president’s skinny budget. Neither USDA nor Office of Management and Budget officials responded to a request for further explanation of the proposal.

Wes King, policy specialist at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said the elimination of these programs could be devastating for many smaller farmers.

“If this were to go away, I think you would have a number of farms that would probably end up closing up shop,” King told HuffPost.

Anna Johnson, a policy program associate at the nonpartisan Center for Rural Affairs, described the RBCS cuts as particularly alarming when combined with massive cuts proposed for other initiatives aimed at rural communities, like zeroed-out funding for the Rural Economic Development Program as well as the USDA’s water and wastewater loan program, which helps fund rural infrastructure projects.

“Economic opportunity in these rural areas is a really big issue, and these areas face higher levels of poverty,” Johnson said. “These are really important programs. For the administration to propose eliminating these supports is troubling for rural communities.”

Criticism of the proposed USDA cuts has come from all sides of the agriculture sector ― including the conservative-leaning Farm Bureau Federation, which said the plan “fails agriculture and rural America” ― as well as members of Congress from both parties.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue appeared to be distancing himself from the president’s spending plan this week. Perdue attempted to assure lawmakers that he is elevating rural development concerns at the USDA, but his reorganization has eliminated the undersecretary for rural development.

Some farmers appear willing to give Perdue a chance to make good on that pledge.

In 2015, William Powers, who owns and operates Darby Springs Farm in Ceresco, Nebraska, alongside his wife, Crystal, was another recipient of a $50,000 VAPG grant. The federal money helped finance the farm’s construction of a creamery that will allow them to make and sell ice cream using milk from their pasture-grazed dairy cows.

“The program is crucial for young entrepreneurs with a cash-flow situation,” Powers explained. “We’re not independently wealthy, so that grant helps us make up some of those upfront payments.”

While Powers believes the proposed cuts to the VAPG and other USDA rural development programs would be detrimental to farms like his, he thinks it’s unlikely Congress will move forward with them.

“But who knows?” he added. “I’m an optimist.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

Trump administration rejects ban on harmful insecticide, dozens of farmworkers get sick

ThinkProgress

Trump administration rejects ban on harmful insecticide, dozens of farmworkers get sick

Chlorpyrifos is linked to neurotoxic symptoms like nausea, dizziness, and confusion.

By Esther Yu Hsi Lee, Immigration Reporter at ThinkProgress. May 15, 2017

More than 50 farmworkers in California became sick from pesticide drift, Kern Golden Empire reported, one month after a controversial pesticide was deemed safe to use by the Trump administration.

On May 5, workers harvesting cabbage on a farm near Bakersfield were exposed to a “pesticide odor” from mandarin orchards in the west sprayed with Vulcan, an organophosphate-based chemical. The active ingredient in Vulcan is chlorpyrifos, a chemical linked to human health problems manufactured by Dow AgroSciences, a division of Dow Chemical. Chlorpyrifos was slated to be banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration.

Approximately 12 people with symptoms of vomiting and nausea were decontaminated, but 11 of those 12 refused any further treatment, according to an incident log on the Kern County Fire Department webpage. One person was taken to the hospital while more than half of the farm-workers left before medical personnel arrived on scene. The Kern County Fire Department, Kern County Environmental Health and Hazmat responded to the area for a mass decontamination.

“I’m not pointing fingers or saying it was done incorrectly. It was just an unfortunate thing the way it was drifted,” Efron Zavalza, Supervisor and Food Safety Specialist at Dan Andrews Farms where the incident occurred, told the publication. “The wind came and pushed everything east and you know we were caught in the path.”

“Anybody that was exposed, that was here today, we encourage them to seek medical attention immediately. Don’t wait. Particularly if you’re suffering from any symptoms. Whether it’s nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, seek medical attention immediately,” Michelle Corson, Public Relations Officer, Kern County Public Health, said.

Chlorpyrifos — a widely-used organophosphate insecticide in use for over 50 years — is used on a variety of crops like oranges, apples, cherries, grapes, and broccoli. It can cause neurotoxic symptoms in humans like nausea, dizziness, and confusion. When exposed to high dosages, humans can suffer from respiratory paralysis or death. A study by researchers at Columbia University found that exposure was linked to brain function and lower IQ among children. For years, environmental groups have pressured the EPA to look into the correlation between pesticide usage and problems that could affect workers on an organic and cellular level.

Also at ThinkProgress: Dow Chemical gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, now wants pesticide risk study buried.

During the Obama administration, EPA scientists recommended taking chlorpyrifos off the market. Despite the scientific evidence, new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the ban on chlorpyrifos on the grounds that the agency needs to “provide regulatory certainty” for the thousands of U.S. farms that rely on chlorpyrifos. Dow Chemical donated $ 1 million to fund Presdient Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony. In a letter to the Trump administration sent in April, Dow Chemical asked the administration to “set aside” and ignore research showing that the pesticide could be harmful to endangered species.

How A ‘Farm Bust’ Could Help Renew American Agriculture

Current farming methodologies aren’t just bad for land, community, and ecology—they’re increasingly bad for business. Something’s gotta give.

By Gracy Olmstead February 13, 2017

The Wall Street Journal is predicting a farm bust on the horizon, as America’s role in the global grain market shrinks, and the price for corn continues to drop. Reporters Jesse Newman and Patrick McGroarty write

The Farm Belt is hurtling toward a milestone: Soon there will be fewer than two million farms in America for the first time since pioneers moved westward after the Louisiana Purchase.

This number definitely reflects a growing decline in farming. But what the Wall Street Journal doesn’t note is that the nation’s largest farms are only growing more powerful and large. We have fewer farms, yes, but largely because we have a greater share of larger, industrialized farms.

The WSJ interviewed a specific type of farmer for this article: the commodity crop farmer. Yes, they represent the greatest portion of farms in the American heartland. But many are also beginning to realize that government subsidies and cushy crop insurance premiums can’t save them forever: when their supply is abundantly overstepping demand, eventually reality is going to hit. And if this WSJ piece is any indication, reality is indeed about to strike.

How America’s Heartland Farms Are Hurting

As you read through the Wall Street Journal’s article, a general outline of the farmers interviewed falls into place: 50-plus years of age, farming more than 1,000 acres, dotted across America’s flyover country in states like Iowa and Kansas. They’re all struggling to make ends meet:

Across the heartland, a multiyear slump in prices for corn, wheat and other farm commodities brought on by a glut of grain world-wide is pushing many farmers further into debt. Some are shutting down, raising concerns that the next few years could bring the biggest wave of farm closures since the 1980s.

The U.S. share of the global grain market is less than half what it was in the 1970s. American farmers’ incomes will drop 9% in 2017, the Agriculture Department estimates, extending the steepest slide since the Great Depression into a fourth year.

Many of these farmers need a second career in order to keep their businesses afloat.

‘No one just grain farms anymore,’ said Deb Stout, whose sons Mason and Spencer farm the family’s 2,000 acres in Sterling, Kan., 120 miles east of Ransom. Spencer also works as a mechanic, and Mason is a substitute mailman. ‘Having a side job seems like the only way to make it work,’ she said.

The History Of American Agriculture’s Decline

How did we get to this point? The WSJ gives a mini history lesson midway through their article:

From the early 1800s until the Great Depression, the number of U.S. farms grew steadily as pioneers spread west of the Mississippi River. Families typically raised a mix of crops and livestock on a few hundred acres of land at most. After World War II, high-horsepower tractors and combines enabled farmers to cover more ground. Two decades ago, genetically engineered seeds helped farmers grow more.

Farms grew bigger and more specialized. Large-scale operations now account for half of U.S. agricultural production. Most farms, even some of the biggest, are still run by families. As farm sizes jumped, their numbers fell, from six million in 1945 to just over two million in 2015, nearing a threshold last seen in the mid-1800s. Total acres farmed in the U.S. have dropped 24% to 912 million acres.

This short account of the jump from subsistence-style farming to today’s industrialized farming could easily fill thousands of pages (and indeed has—from John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” to Wendell Berry’s novels).

Today’s Farms Still Follow an ‘Industrial Paradigm’

The Industrial Revolution shaped and transformed farming in seismic ways. As I wrote for Comment Magazine last year, “farming in the new, industrialized era began to favor quantity and specialization—because new machines worked most efficiently when farmers chose to harvest large, homogenous acreages instead of the small, diversified crops of the past. Farmers sought bigger and bigger swaths of land, seeing in them the promise of greater funds in the bank.”

American farms are still stuck in this “industrial paradigm,” says sustainable farmer Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farms. “Just like the agrarian economy gave way to the industrial, and the industrial to the information, and now the information is giving way to the regenerative economy, agriculture is changing. Because farmers tend to be conservative, agriculture is the slowest of all economic sectors to embrace the new economy.”

When Salatin’s father bought their family-operated farm in Swoope, Virginia, the land was severely eroded, and soil health was poor. “When my dad, in the early 1960s, asked agricultural advisors to tell him how to make a living on this farm, they all encouraged him to abuse the land more aggressively,” remembers Salatin. “He eschewed that counsel and did the opposite of everything they said. Today, we are healthy and profitable. Every person must decide whose advice to follow.”

Incentivizing Farmers to Destroy Neighbors’ Businesses

The WSJ piece goes on, “For some, the slump is an opportunity. Farmers with low debts and enough scale to profit from last year’s record harvests could be in a position to rent or buy up land from struggling neighbors.” In other words, large (most likely government-subsidized) farms can use this opportunity to buy out their smaller counterparts. Sounds like a great thing for the economy long-term, doesn’t it?

One chilly afternoon in October, Mr. Scheufler steered his combine across the first field he bought. The machine’s giant claw spun through rows of golden soybeans. A hawk circled the combine’s wake, hunting for exposed field mice. He recalled farmers whose land he has taken over: Ted Hartwick ’s, the Matthews’, the Profits’, his father’s.

Yes, building a large and profitable business is usually seen as an integral part of free market economics. We don’t want to prevent successful farms from getting larger. But it’s crucial to ask a few questions here: first, are these farms growing via their own merits—or via the support of the federal government? (Often, the answer is the latter.) Is their business model truly sustainable (and therefore, “successful” long term)?

Too often, the growth of a commodity farm means taking diversity, sustainability, and community, and turning these goods into homogeneity, depreciation, and solitude. This may not be Scheufler’s story. But it is, increasingly, the story of America’s heartland. As another interviewee tells the WSJ,

There were 28 students in Mr. Scott’s graduating class at Ransom’s high school nearly four decades ago. Most were farmers’ children. This year there are nine students in the school’s senior class. ‘Farms got bigger to be more efficient, but it’s caused these towns to die a slow death,’ Mr. Scott said.

It’s not just farm towns that are ill-served by the way agriculture currently works. Land erosion, water contamination, and soil pollution are just a few of the ecological consequences of bad farming practices. “The current debacle has been coming for a long time,” says Salatin. And, he adds, “It will not end quickly. Rectifying our decades of abuse will not be easy. Healing will be disturbing.”

Farmers Aren’t Encouraged to Diversify Their Operations

Part of the problem here is that farmers, rather than diversifying their farms to protect against commodity price drops, have been encouraged (largely by subsidies, sometimes by the market) to always produce more of the same.

“Rather than studying how nature works, the informational component of the agriculture sector tends to throw out historic templates and remake life in a mechanical hubris of fatter, faster, bigger, cheaper,” says Salatin.

Many farmers who’ve expanded their enterprises have continued to grow the same exact crops on all that land. Now, writes Newman and McGroarty, “Corn and wheat output has never been higher, and never has so much grain been bunkered away.” So when the price of corn, soybeans, and wheat drops—as it is now—farmers don’t have another crop to fall back on.

In the short term, diversifying your farm operation can be more expensive, time-consuming, and physically demanding. But it also creates job security. Long-term, it protects both your farm and soil health.

When we focus on producing a few commodity crops, any country can beat us at our own game. We produce a glut of grain that global markets are no longer buying. Meanwhile, Americans living in the heartland of Iowa buy their tomatoes and peppers from South America. It seems strange, doesn’t it?

How Can Farmers Adopt to a Changing Market?

“I am concerned about the trend of making farms bigger and bigger, and more impersonal,” Maury Johnson, owner of Blue River Hybrids, told me in an email. “American consumers have more interest in how their food is grown and produced, and the impact our conventional food system has on the environment. I personally am troubled when I drive by the feed-yards and confinement buildings, and have found it difficult to eat the products coming from those environments.”

Promoting a different farming model could prove salutary for farmers. But it requires a drastically different way of thinking, and many are deeply (albeit understandably) opposed to it.

Interestingly, though, a younger generation is increasingly embracing new farming trends, seeking to build smaller, diversified, and local farming operations. As Philanthropy Daily reported last week, “All around the United States, young men and women are joining the ‘new food economy’ of small farmers and food producers. Since 2006, local food marketing channels have seen substantial growth: Farmers’ markets have grown by 180%, reaching 8,200 nationwide. 7.8% of farms in the U.S. are marketing locally, and local food sales have reached $6.1 billion.”

What Might Rebuilding a Local Food Economy Look Like?

These younger farmers, however, are struggling against the orthodoxies of their elders in the agricultural community. As author and farmer Forrest Pritchard noted in an email, “it’s no accident that the youngest farmer cited in this article is 56; the U.S. average age for a farmer is 58 and rising.”

He adds, “It defies explanation that our nation’s food security receives such low priority in our culture. The aging of our American farmers reveals a crisis of neglect—a neglect of training young farmers, a neglect of overhauling our education system to promote alternatives to commodity-dependent agriculture, and a neglect of investing appropriate research and development for alternative types of agricultural models.”

Eduardo Andino’s article in Philanthropy Daily considers a promising shift in farming support, however. He profiles a farm loan business founded by Silicon Valley businessmen. These businessmen decided to leave the world of international business to go local. Their story, which directly addresses the plight of American’s grain farmers, is worth quoting at length:

… Sam and Scott are interested in helping Maine rebuild a local food infrastructure: By giving farmers loans to build grain mills, slaughter houses, distribution plants, and more.

Scott, who some years ago formed a social investing strategies division at TIAA-CREF’s investment department, says that infrastructure is key. ‘100 years ago, you would’ve had local financial institutions that understood how local farming worked,’ and who could help build up local processors and distributors. Today, however, everything has gravitated up to the level of big ads and ‘big food.’

… Based on their international experience, Scott and Sam have concluded that the best thing they can do for agriculture worldwide is to go local. Scott describes his desire to transition ‘from a very top down high level job to a very bottom up job’ as being partially motivated by seeing the work of Rockefeller impact investing in Africa. While observing their work on a sustainable agriculture program in Africa, Scott realized ‘the best thing anyone could do for agriculture all over the world, from poor peasant farmers in Bangladesh to anywhere else, is to fix American agriculture.’

To Survive, American Farms Need To Change

Farming in America is undergoing a series of shifts—hopefully for the better. But the challenges today’s farmers face should not be taken lightly. Salatin urges his fellow farmers to consider making some changes in the way they do business—not just for their bottom line, but for the sake of the next generation, and the long-term wellbeing of the land.

“I know change is difficult for everyone, but I think conventional farmers have to take a hard look at breaking out of the conventional farming scene,” Johnson says. “I understand there’s limitations … but the future does not look good for medium to small conventional farmers, and help will likely not be coming from the government and its farm programs.”

“The regenerative economy is now knocking on the door of agriculture, but nobody is listening,” Salatin says. “The soil does not enjoy being mechanized and industrialized. The agricultural orthodoxy has not asked how ecology works. … Now, nature is batting last. And all the cleverness in Wall Street ultimately can’t prevail against nature’s balance sheet.”

Gracy Olmstead is associate managing editor at The Federalist and the Thursday editor of BRIGHT, a weekly newsletter for women. Her writings can also be found at The American Conservative, The Week, Christianity Today, Acculturated, The University Bookman, and Catholic Rural Life.

(Native) America’s Last Stand?

John Hanno, tarbabys.com – September 5, 2016

(Native) America’s Last Stand?

Twenty years from now, the oil industry will be the new coal companies, failing and bankrupt. Eco investors are bailing on fossil fuel. University endowments, pension and green funds are divesting from fossil fuel and moving into sustainable energy. Communities are requiring utilities to produce a percentage of alternative energy. Investment in the dirtiest Alberta tar sands, has been cut by two thirds. Wind and solar are growing exponentially and costing less. There’s more investment in renewable energy than fossil fuels; and new employment surpasses oil, gas and coal combined.

Renewable energy potential is irrefutable. “Sunlight Striking Earth’s Surface in Just One Hour Delivers Enough Energy to Power the World Economy for an Entire Year.” or “In 14 and a half seconds, the sun provides as much energy to Earth as humanity uses in a day.” or There’s enough wind energy potential from Texas up through Illinois to power the entire nation, if only the power grid were in place. Oil rich Texas (number one) and Iowa (number two), produce more wind energy than they can deliver to cities in need. Our Energy Department has invested 20 million dollars in tidal research but we haven’t scratched the surface of that energy.

In spite of a glut of oil and gas, the fossil fuel industry is frantically installing the massive infrastructure needed to extract and export every ounce of oil and gas before America wakes up; or before alternatives make them obsolete. Dakota Access will cost at least $3 billion. Pipelines already in progress or planned will cost at least that much or more because they must cross ecologically sensitive areas in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois.

If only this enormous investment by oil and gas companies drilling and fracking the earth apart, (hello shaky Oklahoma) and by companies like Enbridge blanketing America with risky pipelines, was instead directed toward renewable energy? Little Costa Rica’s electric grid has been powered entirely by its mix of hydro power, wind, solar, geothermal and biomass for 150 days so far this year. Since June 16th, they’ve gone 88 consecutive days in which all electricity has come from renewable resources. In 2015, they were powered by 99% renewable. America can and must do better!

Fossil fuel pandering politicians, cherish campaign contributions but could care less about American’s, their soil, their precious drinking water, and their children’s and grandchildren’s future. This election is an important turning point in the fight to preserve humanity. If your candidates deny climate change or say they aren’t scientists and don’t know enough to make rational decisions about our climate and comprehensive energy reform, kick them to the curb. They’re too ignorant or corrupt to deserve your vote.

Canada, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and other states are under siege from Canadian Company Enbridge’s Pipeline Network Expansion. More than 100,000 protestors inspired President Obama to decide against approving Keystone XL. American’s can stop Keystone clone Dakota Access and shut down Line 3 and it’s replacement if we stand up in unprecedented numbers. It’s our responsibility as thinking human beings, to oppose and delay the damage being done by fossil fuel interests, until sustainable energy can prevail.

Enbridge wanted to run pipeline 78 across our organic farm. Pipeline 78 and Flanagan South joins Dakota Access at Patoka, IL. The easement they wanted granted the ability to “abandon in place” when they’re finished with the pipeline. Landowners and the American taxpayer will be stuck digging up the more than 250,000 mile of rusting pipelines, leaking into our precious water. When we refused to sign the easement, they filed eminent domain. We lost in state court; but appealed the case because these illegal eminent domain actions by a private foreign company, violate the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It also violates Native American Treaties and Sovereignty. You can read our story at gofundme.com/2xpggwfw.

The Sacred Stone Camp defense has struck a nerve with America’s environmental and progressive communities. Native Americans have a sacred and spiritual connection to their land and water. They and many farm families cherish the blessings Americans have been given with fertile land and pure water. The only hope of stopping this pipeline insanity lies with President Obama and an executive order. Common Sense American’s must stand up in such numbers that the President can’t ignore his duty to protect our environment.

Stand up any way you can. Call your elected officials and especially the White House. Support Bold Nebraska, IL Climate Activists, 350 Kiswaukee, MN350, The Sierra Club, Action Network.org, Bold Iowa, the Sacred Stone Camp gofundme campaign and anyone who believes in environmental common sense. I believe our Native American brothers and sisters can actually stop the Dakota Access pipeline. John Hanno

Jeanette Well written….to the point…if you could sing and dance….get it down to 2 paragraphs…we have a chance…to move their bodies and charge their souls….create understanding in the needed goal…get up on stage and share you have hopes….believing is the key to rockin this boat. Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Very well written piece and I do wish people would take the time to really understand what is at stake….

John Jeanette Thank you. Sorry, a lot to cover.