The Sustainable Food Lab is a technical partner along with many other organizations in support of the Midwest Row Crop Collaborative (MRCC) Climate Smart Commodities grant proposal. Focusing on row crops in the midwest of the USA, the Food Lab is glad to be part of a proposal that builds on the foundation of investment…
By Hal Hamilton I’ve been thinking about the cultural divide between mainstream farmers and those who self-identify as regenerative or organic. As with many other issues, people get stuck in different camps and a chasm solidifies and gets in the way. Regenerative agriculture is both necessary and polarizing. Even though regenerative agriculture is best…
Inflation is at record levels and food shortages abound due to logistics issues and the war in Ukraine. This is both a difficult time to work on increasing farmer income and exactly the right time to commit and lean into the challenge. As our colleagues at Business Fights Poverty wrote this week, a “tsunami of poverty is…
By Elizabeth Reaves & Hal Hamilton Large-scale commodity agriculture functions the way it does for understandable reasons. But that hardly means it needs to remain stuck in the status quo. A shift to a more regenerative system is both necessary and achievable. This blog draws from a report and publicly available tools developed as…
***PLEASE NOTE, WE ARE NOT ACCEPTING ADDITIONAL APPLICATIONS AT THIS TIME*** It’s not often we hire at the Food Lab. We are a small, highly effective team that values collegiality, curiosity, and humility. We get to be inside and contribute to the most creative and innovative public-private partnerships working to support farmers and their end…
By Elizabeth Reaves and Hal Hamilton Regenerative agriculture – a term covering a broad range of sustainable farming practices, many of them as old as agriculture itself – is a topic of increasing interest for farmers and ag companies. How can businesses best contribute to the growth and flourishing of regenerative agriculture? What are…
***PLEASE NOTE, WE ARE NOT ACCEPTING ADDITIONAL APPLICATIONS AT THIS TIME*** SFL is thrilled to post an opening for a 1-year contract to provide direct support to PepsiCo. This position will be base in the US. The person in this job will be responsible for working closely with existing programs and partnerships on the ground…
By Elizabeth Reaves & Hal Hamilton Within a food and beverage company, climate risk affects each function in different ways – and each of these functions can help farmers mitigate and adapt to that risk. This blog draws from a report and a publicly available slide deck on climate risk developed as part of…
Culminating in this report and accompanying resources, the Food Lab and Midwest Row Crop Collaborative led a group of ten companies and The Nature Conservancy to develop an exciting and practical road map for growing regenerative ag across the landscape. Click here to download the report.
Building on many years of work on sustainability in the coffee sector, a recent commitment from the International Coffee Council (ICC) and its secretariat the International Coffee Organization (ICO) has brought private and public stakeholders together to transform the livelihoods and landscape of coffee. The Food Lab is helping support efforts with a focus on…
