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]]>David Oien doesn’t seem like a renegade. He’s a friendly, down-to-earth, third-generation Montana farmer. But Oien and his fellow farmers at Timeless Seeds are renegades. In Montana, a state dominated by conventional wheat, Oien and Timeless Seeds went against the grain by growing organic lentils and other specialty crops in a region where they had never been grown before. And they’ve been successful doing it while building healthy soils on thousands of acres in Montana and helping to revive rural communities.
‘We Needed to Build Soil Health’
Back in the late 1980s, Oien and his three fellow organic farmers, Bud Barta, Jim Barngrover, and Tom Hastings, had no plans to build a business growing and selling organic lentils for food. They just wanted to build soil health.
Wheat is king in Montana with 12 million acres of it grown each year. The state’s farmers grow wheat and then let their fields lay fallow, exposed to the elements. This, combined with years of tillage, badly eroded Montana’s soils. Soil organic matter, an indicator of soil health, had been 5 to 7 percent when Montana was native prairie, but after many years of growing wheat, that number had fallen to 1.5 percent, according to Oien.
“We needed to rebuild fertility, soil health, organic matter, and biological activity,” Oien says.
The four farmers connected with Jim Sims, an agronomist at Montana State University, who had conducted research on the soil-building properties of legumes, such as lentils and peas. Sims developed a self-reseeding leguminous cover crop called George Black Medic. In 1987, the farmers launched Timeless Seeds, aiming to grow and sell Black Medic as a way to help farmers rebuild Montana’s soils. But conventional farmers who were used to using synthetic nitrogen fertilizers didn’t take to the cover crop. The four farmers thought they could also sell Black Medic to the state’s organic farmers. But back then, they were few and far between.
“It was a terrible business model,” Oien says. “Any rational person could have seen that. But it had to be done because cover crops were needed.”
‘Zero Pulse Crops Grown in Montana’
To keep their business going, the farmers turned to growing organic lentils for food, which no one else in Montana was doing.
Protein-rich lentils have been a food source for thousands of years. Lentils are drought-resistant, making them an ideal crop to grow in Montana’s dry climate. As a legume, lentils take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it to a nutrient source in the soil to feed crops grown after them. When grown in rotation with other crops, lentils also help to control weeds, reducing the need for chemical herbicides.
Despite the crop’s advantages, lentils were unknown in Montana. “Back in the 1990s, there were zero pulse crops grown in Montana; west of the Rockies, there might have been a few farms. But no one grew lentils organically,” Oien says.
In 1994, Timeless landed a contract to supply French green lentils to retail grocery chain Trader Joe’s, which would sell them under their own brand.
“I didn’t know who they were,” Oien says. “I thought the name was funky.”
With Trader Joe’s as a customer as well as a growing number of natural food stores, Timeless Seeds needed to expand into a processing facility. A grain elevator in Conrad, Montana, was available to lease. Oien went to his bank to get a loan to lease the facility.
“The bank asked ‘What’s organic?’ and ‘What’s a lentil?’” he says. The bank turned them down, so the farmers incorporated the business and sold shares to family and friends to raise money to lease the facility.
Unfortunately, the Trader Joe’s contract was short-lived, but Oien saw it as a learning experience.
“To have any hope of our survival, we needed more control and a line of products under our own brand,” he says.
That’s what they did, creating their own Timeless Natural Food retail line of lentils, peas, chickpeas, and heirloom grains in 2001. The business grew, and they began sourcing lentils and other crops from more farms.
Their Black Beluga Lentils, a unique black lentil, became the best-selling lentil on the market. “It’s our calling card in the industry,” Oien says. “It looks like caviar.”
Timeless sells its lentils like Black Belugas to leading restaurants.
“Chefs at high-end and farm-to-table restaurants appreciate the quality and unique nutrition of our lentils,” Oien says.
Unique Varieties, Premium Quality, and Nutrient Density
As the organic industry has grown, Timeless Seeds has grown with it. In 2006, the company purchased a larger, 10,000-square-foot facility in 2006 in Ulm, Montana. It increased the number of farms it sources lentils from—to 40 to 50, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 acres. The number of farms growing lentils varies each year according to the farmers’ crop rotations. The range of crops has also expanded to include grains such as farro and emmer wheats, hulless barley, Purple Prairie Barley, Black Kabuli Chickpeas, Black Butte Chickpeas, and other heirloom grains.
Timeless now sells its lentils and other specialty crops to a diverse market that includes natural and specialty food distributors and stores, food manufacturers, meal kit companies, and food service such as fast-casual restaurant chain Sweetgreen. Its market has also expanded to Europe, South America, and Asia.
“Our mantra is unique varieties, premium quality, and nutrient density,” Oien says. “Wheat is king in Montana. We don’t compete with them. We are certified organic family farmers who have the courage to do innovative crops.”
Timeless Seeds’s unique story was the subject of a popular 2015 book, Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America by Liz Carlisle, assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Program at University of California, Santa Barbara.
‘What’s in Our Heart Is to Transition More Land to Organic’
What started as the seed of an idea to rebuild Montana’s soils has grown to become a successful organic business creating a positive impact on the state’s farm economy.
Today, Montana—led by Timeless Seeds—grows half of America’s lentils.
Oien’s vision is to increase organic farmland in Montana and beyond. “What’s in our heart is to transition more land to organic production,” he says.
Timeless Seeds recently hired an agronomist, Joseph Kibiwott, to help farmers transition and to support Timeless’s farmers.
On his organic farm, Oien achieved his original goal—to build soil health. Soil organic matter, which reached a low of 1.5 percent, is now 3.5 percent to 4 percent after 40 years of organic farming.
“The take-home message is that we can make improvements, and it takes time, patience, and markets that support that improvement in soil health,” Oien says. “You can impact rural economies one bite at a time.”
This article originally appeared in the Organic & Non-GMO Report, and is reprinted with permission.
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]]>The post Regenerating the Soil Transformed this Indiana Farm appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>One of the farmers the company signed up with is Rick Clark, a fifth-generation farmer in Warren County, Indiana, located in the west-central part of the state, between the Wabash River and the Illinois state line. Clark’s family has lived on the farm since the 1880s, and today the farm encompasses 7,000 acres.
While Clark produces non-GMO corn and alfalfa for Dannon, as well as profitable cash crops, including non-GMO soybeans for a Cargill facility in Lafayette, Indiana, he does much more than that: he has also developed a unique system for building soil health. Across his property, Clark uses regenerative practices including diverse crop rotations, no-till methods, and cover cropping, and he is striving toward the tough task of combining no-till practices with organic certification.
Clark is one of a small but growing number of farmers who are adopting regenerative agricultural practices to build soil health. (Others include Gabe Brown in North Dakota and David Brandt in Ohio, who were featured in David Montgomery’s book about regenerative agriculture, Growing a Revolution.) His farm offers a practical, proven example of how regenerative farming methods can transform agriculture.
Rick Clark roller crimps fixation clover, crimson clover, oats, radish, and peas. He will plant corn right after this process.
“Diversification drives the system,” he says. “I care deeply about building soil health and will sacrifice yield to maintain soil health.”
Big brands and organizations are paying attention. In 2017, Clark was honored as Dannon’s Sustainable Farmer of the Year. More recently, Land O’ Lakes honored him with an Outstanding Sustainability Award, and he was also a regional winner of the American Soybean Association’s Conservation Legacy Award.
Greg Downing, an agronomist with Cisco Farm Seed, who has worked with Clark for several years, calls Clark’s commitment to soil health “150 percent.” “I think Rick saw early on that building soil health was simple: that when you have something growing all the time and are doing crop rotations, you are doing good things to the soil,” Downing says. “You are going to regenerate a lot of life, biology, as well as minerals.”
According to Downing, a key to Clark’s success is his willingness to experiment and find the best ways of doing things. “There are no barriers for Rick,” he says. “There is no textbook saying you should do this and shouldn’t do that. For him, there’s always better, there’s always more, and finding out how to do more. He’s an experimenter with capital ‘E.’ When you talk about the phrase ‘thinking outside the box,’ well, I don’t really think Rick has ever been in a box.”
Because of his success, Clark’s farm was also chosen, along with 15 other farms in the U.S., as research subjects for soil health experts as part of Danone North America’s $6 million soil health research project. The project aims to identify ways to regenerate soils and provide training in soil health best practices to farmers.
Tina Owens, senior director of agriculture at Danone North America, cites Clark as one of the project’s “shining examples.” “This is real on-the-ground change we are talking about, and we have seen first-hand that Rick exemplifies that level of change,” Owens says. “When we talk to other farmers and other growers in our network, we refer to Rick as an example of the right things to do.”
Clark is happy to share his knowledge of regenerative agriculture with other farmers. He is often asked to speak at conferences and presented at the National No-Till Conference this past January in Indianapolis. As soil health gains traction among farmers nationwide, Clark is confident that others can succeed as he has. “I’m just a farmer in Indiana,” he says, “and if other farmers have a plan and care about building soil health, they can achieve these things, too.”
Soil-Friendly Practices, Like ‘Farming Green’
Clark says he learned soil health practices from a neighbor. “We conversed about what he was doing, and when I had the opportunity to have total control of the farm [in 2010], we switched everything to no-till and cover crops,” he says.
Additionally, Clark has planted all non-GMO crops since 2014, when a nearby dairy asked him to grow non-GMO corn for feed, resulting in his partnership with Dannon. Non-GMO seed is cheaper and yields as much as GMO seed, Clark says. (Because conventional row crop agriculture is so dominated by genetically modified seed, there is very little research into the benefits of growing non-GMO seed.) Beyond the economic incentives, Clark says, “I just prefer to not plant GMO seed, and I want to have a symbiotic relationship with Mother Nature.”
Clark has also put in place a number of practices aimed at increasing soil health, which he defines simply as “decreasing inputs and increasing yield.” “If your inputs are going down, and your yields are going up, how can you not be building soil health?” he says. “That is exactly what this farm is doing.”
First, he rotates his crops. In addition to adding nutrients such as nitrogen to the soil, crop rotation interrupts pest and disease cycles, reducing weeds, insects, and the need for chemical pesticides. One-third of Clark’s farm is in a three-year rotation with corn, soybeans, and wheat. Another third is in a four-year crop rotation—corn, soybeans, wheat, and alfalfa—for a dairy that produces milk for Dannon. And the final third is in transition to organic.
Secondly, Clark practices no-till farming. By not plowing, which disturbs the soil, the farming method reduces soil erosion and sequesters carbon, which mitigates climate change. He has practiced no-till farming with corn for 10 years and soybeans for 15 years.
And finally, Clark has planted diverse “cocktails” of cover crops for the last 10 years. Each fall before the next spring’s planting, he plants a mixture he calls “gunslinger” on his corn fields. The mix includes five crops that each performs a necessary function for soil health: Haywire forage oats build biomass to protect the soil; sorghum sudangrass promotes the growth of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi; tillage radish helps break up compacted soil; and Austrian winter peas and balansa clover add nitrogen, an essential nutrient. On his soybean fields, he plants cover crops such as cereal rye in the fall before planting soybeans the next spring.
A field of cover crops including a mix of oats, radish, peas, fixation clover, and sorghum sudangrass.
As with his main cash crops, Clark emphasizes the importance of cover crop diversity. “I’m going to put out as many things as I possibly can in that cocktail for diversification. “We can fall into a trap of a monoculture in cover crops just like we can fall into a trap of monoculture in cash crops.”
He plants corn and soybeans directly into the cover crops in the spring, a practice he calls “farming green.” “We will not plant our corn or soybean crops unless it is into green growing cover crops,” he says.
He has realized many benefits from farming green. Planting cover crops has helped build organic matter and improve soil health, which has increase crop yields. “We’re extremely profitable,” Clark says of his farm. The practice has also improved water infiltration, because rain penetrates into the soil instead of running off, and it has created a protective “armor” for the soil by adding nitrogen, preventing erosion, and smothering and out competing weeds.
Corn planted directly into Clark’s cereal rye cover crop in the spring.
Since he began farming green, Clark has dramatically decreased the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. “We use no seed treatments, no insecticides, and no fungicides,” he says. “We are to the point where we have nearly eliminated synthetic fertilizers. We only use a little nitrogen on our non-GMO crops. So our cost of production is extremely low.”
Transition to Organic
After reducing chemical inputs, the next logical step would be to grow organic, and Clark is doing that for the challenge. “I also want to continue to make the farm better for the next generation,” he says.
He is transitioning 2,000 acres and will have 400 acres certified organic this month. He plans to grow organic corn using his system of cover crops and no-till.
Clark admits that practicing no-till in organic is a challenge. Few organic farmers practice no-till farming; many continue to plow their fields to eliminate weeds. “Some people think [no-till organic] sounds crazy, but that’s normal for me,” Clark says. “If I can get this figured out, it should be a pretty big deal.”
Many farmers who convert to organic face challenges selling their transitional crops, but Clark has an advantage: “I can use alfalfa as my transition acres,” he says. “It is easy to grow, and I can sell it to the dairy.”
Clark is confident he can produce strong yields of organic corn this year, his first producing a certified organic crop. “At $10 a bushel [paid for organic corn], that is quite a return on your investment,” he says. Conventional corn currently earns around $4.23 per bushel.
Regenerative, Not Sustainable, Agriculture
Regenerative agriculture, with its focus on soil health, is a major trend, and Clark is on the leading edge. But he doesn’t use the word “sustainable” to describe his practices. “That means staying the same,” he says. “I prefer the word ‘regenerative,’ and I have a systematic approach to regenerative farming.”
Clark holding a tillage radish cover crop.
Regenerative agriculture is about creating balance, he explains. “The fungus-to-bacteria ratio is getting in balance. Predator-to-prey insects [are] getting in balance. That is why I don’t need to use insecticides,” he says. “I don’t have the imbalance of corn rootworm eating my roots—I have the predator that preys on corn rootworm in my system.”
With the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization recently warning that more than 90 percent of the earth’s soils could be degraded by 2050, there is an urgent need for the soil-building practices of Rick Clark and like-minded farmers.
“We have got to figure out a way to stop this erosion and losing our topsoil, because it’s not coming back,” Clark said. “I hope that I can build a system that can be adopted across different regions. I’m not trying say my system is better than anyone else’s; I’m just saying that the system I’m working on is working for me and my farm, and I think it could work for other farms. We can all make a difference for being good stewards of the land, building soil health, and being conservationists.”
A version of this article appeared in The Organic & Non-GMO Report.
Top photo: Rick Clark standing in his field of crimson and balansa clover cover crops. (All photos courtesy of Rick Clark.)
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]]>The post These Farmers Switched to Organic After Pesticides Made Their Families Sick appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>Blaine Schmaltz, who farms in Rugby, North Dakota, is a good example. One day in 1993, Schmaltz was spraying an herbicide on his field. He stopped to check the level in the sprayer tank. While looking inside, he lost control of his legs and passed out. He was later hospitalized for several months with asthma, muscle aches and pains, and insomnia. A doctor diagnosed him with “occupational asthma.”
“The doctor told me to leave agriculture,” Schmaltz says. “He said, ‘if you don’t, you probably won’t live 10 years.’”
While recovering, Schmaltz read about organic farming and decided to transition because he wanted to continue farming. The next spring he started the transition, and over time his symptoms disappeared. Today, Schmaltz continues to grow certified organic wheat, beans, flax, and other specialty grains.
“I didn’t switch to organic farming for the money or a utopian dream,” he says. “I did it for myself and my family in order to stay in agriculture.”
Common Story for Many Farmers
Blaine Schmaltz’s experience is not uncommon. Other farmers in the U.S. and Canada have switched to organic because of a health crisis they had—or even the death of a family member—due to pesticide exposure.
“It’s definitely a common story for many farmers,” says Kate Mendenhall, director of the Organic Farmers Association.
For her Master’s degree thesis at Goddard College, Mendenhall interviewed farmers worldwide who transitioned to organic, and she found that health risks from pesticide exposure were a major concern. “That was a theme globally,” she says. “Farmers had problems with pesticides or were nervous about them and didn’t want them around their children. Some had prior health problems from pesticides.”
In 2017, Oregon State University and organic certifier Oregon Tilth released a report, “Breaking New Ground: Farmer Perspectives on Organic Transition,” which found 86 percent of farmers surveyed said that concern about health was one of the main motivations for transitioning.
‘My husband was slowly being poisoned’
Klaas Martens also switched to organic because of bad reactions to pesticides. Martens, who farms in Penn Yan, New York, suffered headaches, nausea, and temporary paralysis of his right arm from exposure to 2,4-D herbicide and other chemicals.
Klaas Martens (left) with Margaret Smith, professor of plant breeding at Cornell University.
Martens dreaded spraying pesticides. “I knew I would feel rotten for a month after,” he says. His wife, Mary-Howell, would later write: “My husband was slowly being poisoned.”
In 1991, the Martens decided to transition to organic because, according to Mary-Howell, they hated what pesticides “might be doing to us, our family, our land, and our environment.” The Martens have been farming organically ever since and operate Lakeview Organic Grain, which supplies organic feed, grains, and seeds.
Saskatchewan farmer Gus Zelinski transitioned his farm after being hospitalized for pesticide poisoning. He inhaled the herbicide Buctril-M after it circulated into the air of his tractor cabin while he was spraying his field. “I couldn’t get my breath; I was just about choking,” Zelinski says. He was hospitalized for a week. “The doctor said I was lucky,” he says.
His wife Dolores says the incident led Gus to convert the farm to organic. But other farmers in their area weren’t as fortunate as Gus. “There are a few farmers in our area who have passed on because of chemicals. But that’s not spoken about in farming communities,” she says.
Dag Falck, organic program manager at Nature’s Path Foods, says he used to heard stories like this often when he did organic inspections. “There were lots of stories about older farmers getting seriously ill or prematurely dying [due to pesticide-related illnesses],” he says.
‘I didn’t want my kids exposed to the chemicals’
In some cases, younger farmers switched to organic after their fathers experienced health problems from pesticide exposure. Tim Raile, who is transitioning his 8500-acre farm in St. Francis, Kansas, says his father had used 2,4-D and malathion. He died of chronic leukemia at age 77 when others in his family had lived longer.
“I really believe that’s one reason his life was shortened,” Raile says. “He was not that careful (handling pesticides) and was told they were safe back in the 1960s and 1970s.”
Raile isn’t surprised that farmers have switched to organic because of concerns with pesticides. “It’s quite common, and was a consideration for me, for sure. I’ve tried to protect myself using protective clothing, but inevitably you get sprayed and eventually it will cause problems,” he says.
Levi Lyle is transitioning his family’s farm in Keota, Iowa to organic, and his father’s cancer was a deciding factor. “My passion for organic farming was inspired by my dad overcoming cancer,” Levi said in an interview with Iowa Farmer Today. In the early 1980s, Levi’s father Trent developed stage-4 lung cancer as well as groin cancer.
“He always wondered where the cancer came from,” Levi says. “There’s much we know about toxicity we add to our fields and so much we don’t know.”
Levi Lyle (right) transitioned his family’s farm to organic after his father Trent (left) overcame cancer. Photo by Bill Tiedje
Fortunately, Trent overcame his illness and still farms. Glen Kadelbach’s father wasn’t as lucky. He died of cancer in 2008, and Glen decided to transition the family’s farm in Hutchinson, Minnesota to organic shortly after his father’s death.
“My dad had gotten splashed with Lasso herbicide 20 years before and he was told he would eventually get cancer. He had prostate cancer and that turned to bone cancer,” Kadelbach says. While Glen can’t be completely sure the pesticide exposure caused his father’s illness, he says it was reason enough for him to go organic. “I didn’t want my kids exposed to the chemicals,” he says.
‘Public health train wreck’
Farmers Blaine Schmaltz, Klaas Martens, and Gus Zelinski all cited herbicides as the cause of their health problems. What’s worse is that herbicide-related health problems are likely to increase for farmers and even the public, according to Charles Benbrook, visiting scholar at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University.
As resistance to glyphosate—the world’s most widely used herbicide—increases, global herbicide use is rising alongside it, Benbrook said. Encouraged by companies like Monsanto and Dow, farmers are escalating the war on weeds by using older, more toxic herbicides such as dicamba and 2,4-D to kill glyphosate-resistant weeds.
“The concern is the amount of herbicides used in the next five to 10 years is going to constitute the largest increase in U.S. history,” Benbrook says, who also notes that level of herbicide use increase should require action from public health agencies and regulators, but adds there is no effort to study the human health impacts of the chemicals. “This is a public health train wreck that no one has the tools, the motivation, or the ability to turn around. The end game will be very costly.”
Those who have made the transition to organic appear to have no regrets. “I [was] so anxious to get rid of the chemicals. I haven’t looked back,” says Raile.
“If I can reduce herbicide use by 20 percent, then reduce another 20 percent, in a few years I hope to eliminate it all. It’s a clear path for me,” says Lyle.
Without the pesticides, Mary-Howell Martens adds, “The farm is a safe place.”
A version of this article originally appeared in The Organic & Non-GMO Report, and is reprinted with permission.
Top photo: Tim Raile (right) and his son Michael (left) holdling his own son, looking over fields they are transitioning to organic.
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]]>The post U.S. Organic Farmland Hits Record 4.1 Million Acres in 2016 appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>As of June 2016, the number of certified organic farms in the U.S. reached 14,979, a 6.2 percent increase of 1,000 farms compared to 2014 survey data.
A recent report on organic acreage from Mercaris found that the top five states in organic cropland are California, Montana, Wisconsin, New York, and North Dakota. California leads the U.S. with 688,000 acres. However, Montana has seen a 30 percent increase in organic farmland, reaching 417,000 acres in 2016, an increase of 100,000 acres since 2014 and adding 50 new organic farms.
The report also estimates that North Dakota, Colorado, and New York all increased their organic farming acres by more than 40,000 since 2014. North Dakota has surpassed Oregon as the fifth leading state in organic acreage. Oregon is sixth followed by Colorado and Texas.
Scott Shander, an economist at Mercaris, attributes the increase in organic acres to farm economics and consumer demand for organic foods.
“The organic industry is growing and with lower commodity grain prices, and farmers are looking to add value and meet consumer demands,” he says.
According to Alex Heilman, a sales associate at Mercaris, the number of organic acres is likely to continue increasing, especially with larger companies such as General Mills and Ardent Mills launching programs to increase organic acres.
“I think we will see more of an impact of those programs in the next few years as more farmers start the transition process (to organic),” he says.
Organic alfalfa/hay was the leading organic crop grown with more than 800,000 acres in 2016. This was followed by organic wheat, corn, and soybeans with 482,000, 292,000, and 150,000 acres respectively. Organic oats reached a record level of 109,000 acres in 2016. Organic wheat showed the greatest increase with nearly 150,000 more acres since 2014 and a 44 percent increase since 2011. Plantings of organic corn increased by 58,000 acres since 2014.
The percentage of acres planted to organic crops such as wheat, corn, soybeans, and oats remains small compared to conventional crops in the U.S. Organic corn accounts for only 0.31 percent of total corn acres; organic wheat was 0.9 percent of total wheat acres; organic soybeans were 0.2 percent of total soybean acres. Organic oats account for the highest percentage of an organic crop with 3.6 percent of total oat acres.
Acreage of both organic corn and soybeans has seen small increases as a percentage of total acres for both crops in the past few years, according to the report. This may be due to the fact that the U.S. is importing large amounts of organic corn and soybeans, which is depressing the U.S. market and prices for both crops. According Shander, 25 percent of organic corn and 75 percent of organic soybeans used in the U.S. are imported.
“It’s a global market that is dictating U.S. prices,” he says. “Demand for organic corn and soybeans is still growing strongly, but production in the U.S. is not growing as fast so more of the production will be international.”
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]]>The post Can Farm-to-Table Tortillas Help Sustain Mexico’s Corn Heritage? appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>Sourced Landrace Non-GMO Corn Varieties
“I gained an appreciation for the storied history of corn,” Gaviria says. “The more I learned the more I wanted to create opportunities for farmers and to connect chefs to them.”
Mexico, particularly the southern state of Oaxaca, is known as the birthplace of corn.
“Mexico has been producing corn for 12,000 years,” Gaviria says.
The country has as many as 59 landraces, or locally adapted, traditional varieties of corn, according to Martha Willcox, Maize Landrace Improvement Coordinator at CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), who has helped Gaviria with his project.
“Maize is the culture in Mexico,” she says. “Everyone eats maize every day, and there are 2000 culinary applications.”
Within those 59 landraces, Gaviria says there are “tons of varieties” of corn, including many colors such as white, blue, red, and yellow.
“There is a huge amount of diversity in the landraces,” Willcox says.
Masienda sources its corn from Oaxaca, whose corn varieties are among the most rare and diverse in Mexico. Gaviria buys the corn from the region’s smallholder farmers who have been growing these corn varieties for generations.
“These farmers are custodians of a very precious commodity,” says Alan Tank, former assistant vice president of the National Corn Growers Association and an adviser to Masienda. “The value it represents to them and to the world is nothing short of phenomenal.”
As an Iowa farmer, Tank appreciates the value of Mexico’s corn heritage. “Being part of family farm, I understand the need for biodiversity and preserving it,” he says.
Provides Needed Income to Farmers
The average size of the smallholder farms range from about 2 to 12 acres. Oaxaca’s farmers are poor with 62 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
Masienda’s purchase of the farmers’ excess corn—most of the corn they need for food—provides the farmers with income they would not otherwise receive.
“We are providing a fair price to the farmers for growing the corn and having a big impact on rural communities there,” Gaviria says.
“It’s a way to provide markets with good prices for farmers who have continued to grow these landraces,” Willcox says.
This year Masienda is working with 1200 farmers after starting with 100 in 2014. Willcox and CIMMYT helped Gaviria identify the best corn varieties, connect with the farmers, source the corn, and pay the farmers.
Masienda imports 10 to 15 different landraces. According to the company’s website, this is the first time in history these corn varieties have been available outside of the remote, indigenous communities of Oaxaca.
Masienda supplies corn to about 100 restaurants, mostly in the U.S. with a few in Canada.
One of those restaurants is Taquiza in Miami, Florida. Owner and chef Steve Santana uses blue and white bolita corn varieties to make masa flour, which is then made into tortillas and chips.
Santana is enthusiastic about Masienda’s corn. “Visually it’s really cool looking, and the flavor is unmatched,” he says.
Santana could buy much cheaper U.S. domestic corn but he prefers the heirloom varieties.
“I like knowing that farmers are getting treated well throughout the supply chain,” he says. “We are preserving a little history; this is pure food in its natural state.”
Non-GMO Market Opportunity
Masienda is growing exponentially. In just two years, the company’s corn imports grew from 40 tons in 2014 to 80 tons last year and 400 this year.
The company is also co-branding tortilla products with Chicago-based restaurant Frontera Grill and plans to sell its own branded products.
Gaviria says the market potential for the landrace corn is huge. According to the Tortilla Industry Association, the U.S. tortilla market is worth $12.5 billion.
Most tortillas in the U.S. are likely made from genetically modified corn since more than 90 percent of the corn grown here is GM. But with the soaring demand for non-GMO foods, there is great market potential for Mexico’s heirloom non-GMO corn.
Mexico has not approved production of GM corn, but last August a Mexican judge overturned a September 2013 ban on plantings of GM corn, paving the way for field trials of the controversial crop.
The concern is that GM corn production could cross pollinate and contaminate Mexico’s landrace corn varieties. In 2001, University of California scientist Ignacio Chapela published a paper documenting GMO contamination of some of Oaxaca’s landrace varieties. Willcox thinks this may have occurred when Mexican migrant workers brought back GM seed from the U.S. and planted it.
However, she says: “I haven’t seen evidence (of GMO contamination). I don’t worry about it. It’s still not legal in Mexico.”
Gaviria sees GMOs as a threat to Mexico’s corn biodiversity. “GMOs could have a fundamental impact on the tradition and scope of preservation,” he says.
Provides Vehicle to Preserve Landrace Corn
Gaviria has ambitious plans for Masienda. “We want to educate consumers on what corn can and should taste like and provide an alternative supply chain to what we’ve conventionally known in the U.S. for the last 50 plus years,” he says.
In the process Masienda aims to support smallholder farmers, sustainability, and biodiversity.
“What Masienda does and represents is nothing short of essential,” Tank says. “It provides a vehicle to ensure landrace genetics can be preserved and protected. It allows farmers to capture value. What better way to preserve the landraces than to create a market for them so they are preserved for history.”
Willcox says Masienda is an exciting project with a lot of potential: “It’s a conservation effort, a development effort, and a research effort.”
This post originally appeared in The Organic and Non-GMO Report.
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]]>The post Can the Ingredient Supply Chain Keep up With The “Non-GMO Tsunami?” appeared first on Civil Eats.
]]>At the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists tradeshow, a supplier of non-GMO ingredients told me that the “non-GMO tsunami is coming.”
Based on the growth of the non-GMO market in the past two years, that tsunami is already here. Sales of Non-GMO Project verified products have topped $11 billion per year, and now number more than 29,500. According to a report by Food Processing, new products with non-GMO claims increased by 45 percent in 2014.
Large mainstream companies are going GMO free. Chipotle recently announced that it had completed the transition to non-GMO ingredients in its foods. Ben & Jerry’s is transitioning to non-GMO ingredients in its ice creams. General Mills switched to non-GMO ingredients in its classic Cheerios cereal. Post Cereals’ iconic Grape Nuts is now Non-GMO Project verified. Buttery spreads Boulder Brands’ Smart Balance and Unilever’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” are now made without GMO ingredients. Hellman’s now has a non-GMO version of its mayonnaise. And earlier this year, Hershey’s announced that it was moving away from GMO ingredients in its famous Kisses and Milk Chocolate.
Non-GMO Supply Up 25 Percent
With this rapid growth, can the supply of non-GMO grains and ingredients meet the exploding demand? Industry experts say yes. Kellie James, CEO of Mercaris, a market data service for non-GMO and organic grains, said that some non-GMO corn and soybeans are being sold as conventional, or stored in the hopes that premiums or buyers will increase at a later date.
“More farmers have grown than there is demand for,” said James, whose company is trying to fill the need for accurate reporting of non-GMO supply.
Lynn Clarkson, president of Clarkson Grain, agrees. “Supply is up 25 percent, and demand is up 15-20 percent. I don’t think there is a danger of non-GMO supplies running out.”
80 Percent Growth in Demand for Non-GMO and Organic
Ingredient suppliers also report strong demand and supply.
“Demand has been really good and growing,” said Kara VanKleek, marketing director at CHS, Inc., which supplies Non-GMO Project verified soy flours, flakes, and oils.
VanKleek sees growing demand for non-GMO soybean oil in the food service industry, which includes hospitals, schools, and quick serve restaurants. She also reports strong demand for non-GMO soy flour from food manufacturers.
CHS doesn’t have supply challenges because it is a farmer-owned cooperative and vertically integrated.
“Our farmers will grow whatever is needed,” Van Kleek said.
The Scoular Company also reports having sufficient non-GMO supplies. “For Non-GMO, we have been able to find supply and have been able to meet the demand,” said Joe Andrus, director of The Scoular Company’s Food Ingredients division, which supplies non-GMO and organic proteins, sweeteners, and oils to food and supplement manufacturers.
Andrus has seen 80 percent growth in demand for both non-GMO and organic ingredients. “Non-GMO is becoming more and more mainstream. It’s still a niche, but it’s coming,” he said.
Nate Yates, business director with Ingredion, sees a tighter supply situation. “It’s not an unlimited supply. But for what we have wanted, we have not had a challenge sourcing raw material,” he said.
Ingredion sells non-GMO modified starches and sweeteners. Twenty of its products are Non-GMO Project verified. “We are seeing demand across all food categories,” Yates said.
Debbra DeMarco, vice president of Canada-based Top Health Ingredients, has also seen interest in non-GMO increase in the past year.
“In 2013, people were talking about non-GMO but now we are getting calls for non-GMO ingredients. Customers are getting more serious,” said DeMarco, whose company sells non-GMO sweeteners, proteins, and fibers.
Overall, non-GMO ingredients can cost around 20 percent more than their conventional counterparts.
“The increase in price is a function of identity-preserving raw material from the farm all the way to the plant. This ranges from 10 percent to 25 percent,” Yates said.
Companies Looking to Build Non-GMO Supply Chains
The non-GMO supply chain encompasses a wide range from grains, such as corn and soybeans and processed products, such as oils, flours, proteins, and meals, to sweeteners, starches, and minor ingredients such as lecithin, citric acid, enzymes, food colors, and flavors. There are now non-GMO sources for nearly all of those products, and many are becoming Non-GMO Project verified.
For example, Minneapolis-based Captain Drake, LLC is the only supplier of Non-GMO Project verified citric acid, sodium citrate, potassium citrate, and organic cane sugar.
Company president Mark Anderson said demand for his non-GMO citric acid is strong now due to the recent court ruling upholding Vermont’s GMO labeling law.
“Large companies have been resistant but now everyone is trying to find non-GMO ingredients,” he said. “This is the largest and fastest movement I have ever seen in the 45 years I’ve been involved in the food and beverage industry.”
Anderson emphasized that his product, which is derived from sugar cane, doesn’t cost more than conventional citric acid, which is derived from GM corn.
“It’s not true that if food companies switch to non-GMO ingredients, their costs will increase,” he said.
Non-GMO food flavors are also becoming available led by California-based Blue Pacific Flavors, which became the first flavoring company to receive Non-GMO Project verification.
“More companies are looking to build supply chains that simplify the process of going non-GMO,” said CEO Donald Wilkes.
More Non-GMO Alternatives
Ingredient suppliers are offering more alternatives to GM corn- and soy-based ingredients. Iowa-based World Food Processing recently introduced PURISPea Non-GMO Project verified proteins for use in a wide range of products including protein powders, nutrition bars, and ready-to-drink beverages.
According to Tyler Lorenzen, vice president of business development, peas offer many benefits as an alternative protein.
“Peas are non-GMO, free of allergens, high in starch, and not processed with hexane (a chemical solvent),” he said.
Rice is also being used as a protein source. Rice Bran Technologies sells products made from rice bran, including protein, fiber, and oil. The company’s RiBran food ingredient is Non-GMO Project verified.
Rice Bran Technologies’ CEO W. John Short said the verification helps food manufacturing customers that are also being non-GMO verified by making the verification process easier.
Ingredients derived from sunflowers including oil, lecithin, and vitamin E have also become popular alternatives to GMO soy products.
Rick Robbins, general manager at Colorado Mills, which processes sunflower oil, sees steadily growing interest in sunflower as a non-GMO alternative.
“From what we hear, companies are being asked by their customers: ‘are you using non-GMO products?’ ” he said. “Non-GMO is becoming as important as organic.”
Robbins sees a trend away from soybean oil to sunflower. “Sunflower is a healthier oil and can handle heat much better,” he said.
However, sunflower oil can cost twice as much as conventional soybean oil.
Recommendations for Sourcing
Supply chain experts recommend that long-term planning is essential when buying non-GMO ingredients.
“Now is the time for companies to make commitments, not next spring. Good buyers have already made arrangements for next year,” Clarkson said.
Third-party verification ingredient sources is also becoming important, according to Andrus.
“Make sure you can verify your sources,” he said.
This post originally appeared in The Organic and Non-GMO Report.
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]]>A farmer in Missouri is helping Chipotle take its “food with integrity” commitment one step further—to organic. Steve McKaskle, owner of McKaskle Family Farm, the only organic rice farm in Missouri, supplies a growing number of Chipotle restaurants in his region with organic long grain white and brown rice.
After the Tornado
Based in Braggadocio in Missouri’s southernmost Bootheel region, the seven-generation McKaskle Family Farm offers an excellent example of how a bad event can bring a blessing in disguise. In the early 2000s Steve and his wife Kaye grew organic cotton, which they supplied to companies like Patagonia, Ecosport, and Nike. But in 2006 an F4 tornado destroyed the McKaskles’ farm headquarters, tractors, barns, grain bins, cotton harvesters, and cotton gin.
“We lost our entire farming operation and three-fourths of our home,” Steve McKaskle says. “We barely survived.”
But like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, the McKaskles rebuilt their farm. Without the cotton harvesters and gin, they switched to growing organic rice and found greater success. Today, their farm is thriving more than ever, as they supply organic rice to Chipotle restaurants in Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
“We’re rebounders,” McKaskle says.
Along with rice, McKaskle Family Farm grows organic popcorn, soybeans, winter wheat, and oats on about 2000 acres.
They also package and sell their own Braggadocio brand organic rice and popcorn to Whole Foods store, Hy-Vee supermarkets, and natural food stores in Missouri and surrounding states.
Mill Expands Capacity
To better serve Chipotle’s needs, McKaskle Family Farm recently expanded with a new rice processing facility that was partially funded by state income tax credits from the Missouri Department of Agriculture. Construction of the mill was completed in November 2014.
The mill features state-of-the-art equipment from Taiwan and Japan. A grain bin loop system moves rice through the mill building where it is cleaned and hulls, the hard protective covering of rice grains, are removed. A grader separates broken rice grains from grains that are the required length. Then a color sorter uses infrared light to detect discolored rice grains and uses a stream of air to remove them.
The mill is partially powered by solar energy. Nine 15-feet by 10-feet solar panels generate 44 kilowatts of energy to power the grain bins, farmhouse, fans, irrigation pump, and well.
Aims to Supply 50-75 Chipotle Restaurants
Before building the mill, McKaskle delivered rice to seven Chipotle restaurants in Little Rock, Memphis, and Nashville.
“Now a distribution center picks up several thousand pounds of rice to deliver to 11 restaurants in Missouri and two in Arkansas and we deliver to seven,” he says.
McKaskle plans to supply more Chipotle restaurants by this fall. Chipotle wants McKaskle to supply 50-75 restaurants in the next few years. That will take some work.
“Before we can supply a lot of restaurants, we have to be sure we can grow 20 percent more than what we need to supply those restaurants. It takes planning and putting in infrastructure,” he says.
Seventy five restaurants is still just a fraction of Chipotle’s more than 1600—and counting—restaurants nationwide.
“Rice Whisperer”
McKaskle has been the only organic rice farmer in Missouri but that is about to change. He is encouraging other farmers in his area to grow organic rice.
“We hope to make it attractive to them so that they will join us,” McKaskle says.
In fact, two Missouri farmers approached McKaskle about growing organic rice, and one will start the three-year transition to organic this year.
McKaskle is also experimenting with growing organic black and pinto beans for Chipotle.
“We need to find a [bean] maturity that will work in our area,” McKaskle says.
Chipotle is promoting its partnership with McKaskle. The company filmed a short video at McKaskle’s farm and featured him as the “Rice Whisperer” on a coupon card offering a free burrito.
“We have high standards for all of the ingredients we use, and having like-minded farm partners like McKaskle is a key component in helping us change the way people think about and eat fast food,” says Chris Arnold, Chipotle’s communications director. “Quite simply, we can’t run our business without having strong ties to our farm partners.”
If Chipotle can find more resourceful organic farmers like Steve McKaskle, it will be well on its way to serving more organic foods—foods with the most integrity—in its restaurants across the U.S.
This post originally appeared in the Organic & Non-GMO Report.
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]]>Major retail chains such as Kroger, Target, and Wal-Mart are making major commitments to sell more organic food. General Mills plans to double its organic product sales in the next five years. Even McDonald’s plans to serve organic items in its restaurants.
Demand Outstripping Supply
While consumer demand for organic is booming, the supply of organic ingredients and agricultural products, particularly grains and animal feed, lags far behind.
“The demand for organic has skyrocketed, but with a three-year transition [to organic production], the supply hasn’t caught up,” says Errol Schweizer, executive global grocery coordinator at Whole Foods Market. “There has been a mass awakening among consumers for organic, but not a mass awakening in the farming community.”
Organic grain shortages, for both food and animal feed, are a particular bottleneck to the expansion of the organic market. The shortages have created competition for organic farmers and forced companies to import large amounts of organic grain from Canada, Eastern Europe, and South Africa.
It is difficult to determine the organic supply shortage, says Nathaniel Lewis, senior crop and livestock specialist at the Organic Trade Association (OTA). “We only have anecdotal reports on how many tons and acres are needed,” he says, adding that OTA is working to get data on imports of organic grains.
Lewis says that one organic food company had to shelve two or three new product lines because of doubts about sufficient supplies of ingredients.
At General Mills, organic demand is twice as great as supply, according to Beth Robertson-Martin, who handles the company’s sourcing of organic ingredients, though she adds that “it depends on the crop.”
Companies Committed to Growing Organic Supply
Annie’s, Inc. is another organic food company experiencing supply shortages. Shauna Sadowski, Annie’s director of sustainability, started to address the challenge in 2011 by visiting organic wheat farmers in the Northern Plains and attending organic conferences in the area. “We need a stable supply of wheat,” she says. “My aim was to see what Annie’s could do to support farmers.”
The farmers told Sadowski that they didn’t want to just sell their wheat, but wanted to sell their whole crop rotation. They also described challenges with weeds, crop yields, access to land, the three-year transition to organic, and lack of support from university extension services.
In 2013, Sadowski contacted the Sustainable Food Lab (SFL) to see if they could help. SFL is a consortium of businesses and non-profit groups working to accelerate the shift toward sustainability. “SFL and I thought we could make this bigger than just Annie’s,” she says. “We wanted to bring other companies into the conversation to address needs of farmers and the companies.”
Sadowski reached out to colleagues at Stonyfield Farm, Organic Valley, Clif Bar, Grain Millers, and the OTA. This led to the formation of the U.S. Organic Grain Collaboration.
“We have a progressive group of companies committed to growing the organic grain supply,” says Elizabeth Reaves, SFL program director. “The focus is to address the systemic issues that are barriers to farmers in organic production.”
According to Lewis, those barriers include technical issues, such as access to resources, knowledge, equipment, and services for transitioning to organic production, and lack of organic market information and resources. But Lewis says the cultural element may be the most challenging. “It’s about the conversation at the coffee shop [about the fact] that your organic fields have more weeds. How do we change the cultural perceptions around organic?”
Financial Investments Needed for Organic Research
Sadowski also emphasizes the need for financial investment. “Research in this area is underfunded. Grains haven’t been a focus of organic research,” she says.
Could Annie’s parent company General Mills bring their vast resources to the U.S. Organic Grain Collaboration? Possibly. “There is interest from General Mills,” says Sadowski. “We are just starting to talk to them.”
Financial support is also coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which recently announced a $66.5 million grant, part of which will support the department’s Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI). One of OREI’s goals is to identify marketing and policy constraints to the expansion of organic agriculture.
According to Lewis, the OREI grant will also help fund research on organic weed control methods, which are crucial. “Weeds are the number one barrier to farmers transitioning to organic from a cultural and technical perspective,” Lewis says.
Pilot Projects in Maine and Northern Plains
Based on an SFL report and discussions among members, the collaborative decided to launch two pilot projects to test approaches needed to grow the supply of organic grain. Aroostook County, Maine is one of the regions, and participating companies are Stonyfield, Organic Valley, Pete and Gerry’s. The other is the Northern Great Plains, where participating companies are Annie’s, Grain Millers, Clif Bar, Nature’s Path, Whole Foods, and Dave’s Killer Bread. OTA will also participate in both regions.
“We want to understand the differences in each place and how private companies can invest to address those challenges,” Reaves says.
SFL will host workshops in both regions based on information gathered in interviews with stakeholders. Then it will design short- and long-term strategies for increasing organic supply in both regions.
“We are just at the beginning of this work. This group is really in a listening phase,” says Reaves.
The fact that the organic companies are working together—and not competing—to address the supply challenge is a big first step. “This core group of companies is committed to a pre-competitive approach to growing the organic grain supply,” Reaves says. “In order to grow the industry we have to invest in the long-term viability of farmers who are growing the grain.”
Lewis agrees. “What’s needed is collaboration and relationship building. We all need to come together,” he says. “If we don’t have collaboration with everyone in the supply chain, success will be challenging.”
This post originally appeared on the Organic and Non-GMO Report.
Photo: Shutterstock/Pinkyone
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]]>Taylor is a career dairyman; he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a dairy process engineer. In his 40-plus-year career, Taylor designed processing plants and systems for companies such as Safeway, Dannon, Land O’ Lakes, and Yoplait. Cut him and Taylor says he will “bleed white.”
Seven years ago, Taylor left a successful dairy consulting business to start Snowville Creamery. Why? Because he felt that the milk produced today was an inferior, poor-tasting product.
“I was mad at the industry,” he says. “I built a creamery to prove that we can produce good high quality, good tasting milk for everybody in America.”
Applying his engineering knowledge, Taylor wants to produce a model of non-GMO and organic milk production that can be replicated nationwide.
“I’m not into marketing. I’m a revolutionary and want to change the world,” Taylor says.
Pasture-Raised Cows
Snowville buys milk from 10 local dairy farms and processes it into milk, cream, and yogurt products. The creamery produces 15,000 gallons of milk per week. Snowville’s dairy products are sold in supermarkets such as Kroger, Giant Eagle, and Whole Foods stores in Ohio, Pittsburgh, PA, Louisville, KY, and Washington, D.C. Restaurants in the Columbus and Athens, Ohio areas also use Snowville’s products.
Many of Snowville’s dairy farms raise brown Jersey cows, which are known to produce milk that contains higher butterfat, lactose, protein, and minerals. The cows graze on pasture, which makes up about 75 percent of their diet, the rest being grains such as corn, which supply protein.
According to Taylor, pasture-raised cows produce more nutritious milk that is much higher in omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid, essential nutrients for heart and brain function.
It tastes better too. “You can taste the difference of milk from grass fed cows,” he says.
Snowville’s cows graze on pasture 250 days per year, more than double the National Organic Program’s requirement of 120 days for organic dairy cows. So why doesn’t Snowville just go organic? Taylor, who has heard that question many times, has a ready response.
“Because there is not a sufficient quantity of economically available certified organic feed and forage,” he says. “Organic corn costs about twice whatever commodity corn costs.”
Encouraging Farmers to Grow Non-GMO Without Chemicals
The feed challenge led Taylor to apply his engineering skills and build his own supply chain, which he believes can be replicated nationwide and could lead to the elimination of genetically modified crops. Taylor chose to source non-GMO corn for feed, which is readily available from Ohio farmers. The non-GMO corn sells for a $.50 per bushel premium above the cost of commodity corn.
Taylor offered farmers a $1.00 per bushel premium as a way to encourage them to develop long-term relationships with Snowville. Taylor plans to pay the farmers an additional $.50 per bushel premium each year to encourage them to reduce the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. In this way he is subsidizing the farmers’ transition to certified organic production, which is his ultimate goal.
“In three or four years we are paying $2 or $3 over commodity price and have created additional organic grain supply for livestock agriculture in Ohio,” Taylor says. “We want to leverage non-GMO into certified organic as quickly as possible. Non-GMO is a bridge.”
GMO Test Results Available on the Web
Taylor contracted an Amish mill in Wooster, Ohio to process the non-GMO corn and test it for GMOs. He supplied the mill with GMO testing equipment from Envirologix including a Quikscan scanner, computer, and Quickcomb GMO test strips. Taylor developed a protocol with the mill that includes testing, notification to Snowville of test results, and rejection of grains that test above 1.5 percent GMO material.
Snowville publishes the GMO test results on its website for all to see. “I want to be transparent, which is what we all should be doing in the food industry,” Taylor says.
Taylor wanted to label his dairy products as “non-GMO-fed,” so he contacted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which told him to contact the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which then told him to go back to the FDA. Taylor then contacted the Ohio Department of Agriculture, which worked with him to develop a label for his products, which reads, “From Grass Grazed Cows Fed Only Non-GMO Feeds & Forage.”
Taylor is also putting his products through the Non-GMO Project’s verification program at the request of Whole Foods Market, which wants its suppliers to be verified to meet the company’s GMO labeling requirement by 2018.
Future plans for Snowville include building a local mill to process the feed. Taylor hopes to secure a Slow Money loan to finance the mill. He also received a grant to purchase seeds and work with farmers to grow small grains as feed alternatives to GMO-risk corn.
Taylor sees his non-GMO operation, while small, as a significant step to addressing the big threats posed by chemical intensive GMO agriculture.
“Our approach has the potential to increase the supply to meet the demand, while leading non-GMO feed and forage producers towards certified organic production,” he says. “I’m optimistic we will be able to change the food system.”
This post originally appeared on The Organic and Non-GMO Report.
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]]>“We need corn that organic farmers can grow without fear of GMO contamination,” says Kutka, who is in the fourth year of a five-year breeding project funded by the Organic Farming Research Foundation.
Gametophytic Incompatibility
Kutka faces a huge challenge. Each year US farmers plant GMO corn on millions of acres; 93 percent of this year’s corn crop is GMO. Corn cross-pollinates with other corn plants. Each plant produces millions of pollen grains that are carried by the wind to other corn plants where they pollinate the plant’s silks and produce kernels. The problem is that GMO corn can pass its modified genes or “transgenes” on during cross-pollination.
Kutka’s research focuses on naturally occurring traits found in popcorns and the ancient grain teosinte that make it difficult for GMO pollen to enter the corn silks, thus preventing cross-pollination. The trait is known as gametophytic incompatibility or Ga1S, and is not a new discovery, according to Kutka.
“The trait has been known and used for decades. It was first used in popcorn in the 1950s and then in white corn varieties in the 1970s. It’s not a perfect system, but it greatly reduces the risk of out-crossing,” he says.
Kutka is also working with another pollen block trait—Ga2S, which is found in teosinte, an ancestor of maize.
While this project began in 2011, Kutka has been working on pollen blocking traits since 2001 when he was a graduate student at Cornell University. Kutka calls the new corn varieties “Organic Ready” as a play on Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” GMO crops.
The Challenge of Cross-Pollination
GMOs are prohibited in organic production under the USDA National Organic Program, but there are no regulations in place to protect farmers against accidental contamination from the pollen of GM corn. Organic and non-GMO farmers have suffered economic losses when their corn tested positive for GMOs and was rejected by grain buyers. A recent survey of organic farmers from 17 states, predominantly in the Midwest, shows 67 percent planned to delay planting corn this year so their crops would pollinate later than their neighbors’ GM corn, at an average cost of $16,000. The problem is also impacting heirloom seed companies; Missouri-based Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has lost one-half of its heirloom varieties to GMO contamination.
That’s why Kutka feels a sense of urgency to his work. He hopes to release some seed varieties of open pollinated Organic Ready in 2015.
“I’m working on developing varieties that hopefully will work in a lot of different locations in the U.S.,” he says.
Kutka is working with another corn breeder, Dave Christensen, to breed the pollen-blocking trait into a Painted Mountain Corn variety that grows in the harsh dry mountainous regions of the West. Another corn breeder, Major Goodman at North Carolina State University, is developing pollen-blocking organic corn varieties for Southern growing regions.
Another challenge for Kutka is that he is doing the breeding work part-time. He also works a “day job,” as a coordinator for the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society Farm Breeding Club.
Time is of the Essence
Organic Ready corn won’t be the first pollen-blocking corn variety on the market. Iowa-based Blue River Hybrids has been selling an organic corn hybrid variety called PuraMaize for the past three years. Similar to Organic Ready corn, PuraMaize contains the pollen-blocking Ga1S trait.
Tests on PuraMaize corn harvested in 2012 and 2013 found that it was effective in reducing cross-pollination and contamination from GM corn. Samples from both years’ harvest tested negative for GMOs “at the operational limit of 0.05 percent.”
Blue River Hybrids president Maury Johnson says the PuraMaize corn also produces yields that are competitive with other corn varieties.
PuraMaize is a patented trait that Blue River licensed from Nebraska-based Hogemeyer Hybrids, which was later purchased by Pioneer Hi-Bred. Kutka and other corn breeders such as Margaret Smith at Cornell University and Major Goodman have opposed the patent, saying the Ga1S trait has been used for decades.
Kutka wants other corn breeders and farmers to have ready access to his Organic Ready corn. Seeds will be released to the public along with short publications in the Maize Genetics Cooperation Newsletter in order to prevent their being patented. “These seed releases are to encourage others to work with this trait and for organic farmers to grow as they wish,” he says.
Breeding pollen-blocking traits into corn is a process that takes time, and Kutka understands that time is of the essence.
“There is a lot of work on the breeder’s side, but I really see this as the way we have to go,” he says. “I want to see corn remain a profitable part of organic farming.”
A version of this post appeared in the Organic and Non-GMO Report.
A version of this post appeared on The Organic & Non-GMO Report. – See more at: http://civileats.com/2014/07/10/from-developing-gmos-to-breeding-organic-seeds-a-scientist-makes-the-switch/#sthash.snxy2BMa.dpuf
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]]>Dever prefers the latter role. “I am just very comfortable here,” she says. “This is a great opportunity to work for Texas cotton producers and the more than 90 percent of U.S. organic cotton producers located on the Texas High Plains.”
At Bayer, Dever became frustrated with the focus on developing plants as “projects” with a distinct beginning and end as opposed to breeding, which she sees as a process.
“What a lot of folks don’t understand is that ‘breeding’ and ‘GM trait development’ are two entirely different things,” she says. “It did not take long to understand that companies like these are not in the seed business unless they can realize growth from GM traits.”
Dever says she gained valuable experience at Bayer but says: “My heart is with breeding, genetic diversity, and genetic resource preservation.”
When the cotton breeding position at Texas A&M AgriLife opened in 2008, Dever “took a leap of faith” and accepted it, backed by support from Texas farmers, the National Institute for Food and Agriculture’s Organic Research and Extension Initiative, and the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative (TOCMC).
At AgriLife Dever has focused on breeding organic cotton varieties that have improved fiber quality, drought tolerance, resistance to thrip pests, and bolls that can handle Texas’s nasty sandstorms and extreme weather. Preserving genetic resources from unintended GMO contamination is another goal of Dever’s research.
An estimated 15,685 acres of organic cotton was planted in the U.S. in 2013 with more than 95 percent of that grown on the High Plains of West Texas. North Carolina has also emerged recently as a producer of organic cotton.
Rare seeds
Keeping GMOs out of non-GMO and organic cotton is a challenge because—as with corn and soybeans—GMO varieties account for more than 90 percent of production in the U.S.
The three major companies that sell cottonseed—Monsanto, Bayer CropScience, and Dow AgroScience—don’t offer non-GMO varieties.
Non-GMO cottonseed options are even more limited than they are for corn and soybeans.
Dever often receives inquiries on where to find non-GMO seeds, especially since the spread of herbicide resistant weeds, which are devastating cotton fields in the South. The Roundup Ready GMO trait is also so widespread in cottonseed that it is difficult for plant breeders like Dever to keep it out of her organic varieties.
“The problem for non-GM or organic breeders in a crop where biotechnology traits have been intensively adopted is that potential contamination is not visible,” Dever says. “Even the smallest amount of unintended contamination can multiply during the crossing, plant selection, and even testing phase if you do not know it is there.”
Tests to detect GMO traits can also be expensive.
Another aspect of Dever’s research is developing a fast, economical method to screen organic cotton for the Roundup Ready GMO trait. Seed Matters, an initiative that supports organic seed breeding projects, provided a $125,000 fellowship to Texas Tech graduate student Ryan Gregory to develop the method.
“If he can help devise a practical method to nip contamination in the bud, it will be of interest to every public cotton breeder,” Dever says. “Seed growers and farmers can maintain purity reasonably well if their beginning seed stocks are free from unintended presence of GM traits.”
Encouraging results
Testing of the new organic cotton varieties began in 2011 on TOCMC members’ organic farms. The results so far are encouraging. “We saw a 30 – 40 percent reduction in insect damage from thrip, which is a major pest problem in organic cotton production,” Dever says.
She plans to release an organic cotton variety for farmers next year and aims to get an agreement with All-Tex Seed, a regional cottonseed company that offers non-GMO varieties and will process the organic cotton varieties.
The varieties could also be used in non-GMO cotton production. “The (research) results are applicable in many cases to conventional, non-GMO production,” Dever says.
She emphasizes that breeding is a process that takes time. “It’s a long-term thing. Once you get a variety, farmers can follow best management practices with isolation guidelines, but they have to start with clean seed. Their challenge is my challenge.”
Dever is also happy to be preserving genetic diversity. “The non-GM market is small and certainly under-served, which is exactly why it is where I focus as a public breeder,” she says. “It is not ‘picking up crumbs’ left from private sector crop development, which is short-sighted, but rather continuing the work needed to ensure genetics will do its part to address global resource issues.”
A version of this post appeared on The Organic & Non-GMO Report.
The post From Developing GMOs to Breeding Organic Seeds: A Scientist Makes the Switch appeared first on Civil Eats.
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