Hal Hamilton and Elizabeth Reaves In late 2020, one of our colleagues, who is responsible for the greenhouse gas commitments of a large food company, asked us to help quantify costs and GHG impacts of work with farmers in their supply chain. The company was having some difficulty justifying projects in crop agriculture because of…
By Elizabeth Reaves Just a few weeks ago the Food Lab and some of our corporate partners were standing around in the muddied farmyard of a large Washington State dairy, with a chilly Pacific Northwest mist clinging to the hillsides and sitting low over the cows lined up for milking. For the Food Lab team,…
As part of our Small Grains in the Corn Belt initiative, Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) and the Food Lab are asking the questions: Can farmers be profitable when adding a small grain and cover crop to their corn and soy rotation? What additional sustainability value can be captured by the supply chain? Is it…
In collaboration with the Organic Trade Association, the Organic Grain Collaboration has co-authored a new report, titled “U.S. Organic Grain – How to Keep It Growing“. The report includes information on organic grain production, market trends and the barriers to expanding domestic organic grain production as well as industry solutions to overcome these barriers. A press…
Elizabeth Reaves, our Senior Program Director of Agriculture and Environment, is featured in Our Farms, Our Future podcast produced by SARE exploring a catalyst for change in agriculture. Listen to Episode 021: “Finding a Catalyst for Change in Agriculture” here or download from iTunes or Stitcher.
Check out our latest Small Grains in the Corn Belt Newsletter which shares what we’ve been up to this past month. From a farmer conference to new modeling capabilities, we’ve hit the ground running in 2019. Read more here.
Animated videos designed to help our partners communicate the importance of soil health Together with Graphic Harvest, the Sustainable Food Lab created two short educational videos to simplify the critical role soil health plays in agriculture and outline best practice solutions. The videos are intended to: Take a complex issue and share in an easy-to-digest…
Soil Under Our Feet Click here for PDF version Soil Building Dilemmas and Breakthroughs Elizabeth Reaves and Hal Hamilton This past June, while facilitating a learning journey with a group of 30 young sustainability executives from major food companies, we found ourselves standing quietly under a bluebird Iowa sky in Jeremy Gustafson’s farmyard, looking out…
The booming organic industry continues to be a bright spot for growth in the US farm economy averaging double-digit growth over the last five years. While the organic industry thrives, acres used for organic production in the US are not growing fast enough to keep up and hover around 2% of total US agriculture with…
Despite the title, this blog is not about sex, unless we consider the teeming reproductive activity of billions of micro-organisms in every tablespoon of fertile soil. I’m writing for those who wonder how important soil health is. Over the years, advocates for sustainable agriculture have promoted the importance of many different goals: fewer pesticides, less…