Since 1990, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the agency responsible for ensuring food contact materials are safe, approved at least 347 voluntary manufacturer applications for food contact materials made with recycled plastic, according to a database on its website. Approvals have tripled in recent years, from an average of seven to eight per year through 2019, to 23 per year since then, and they continue to climb. The FDA has already approved 27 proposals through June this year.

Other than Coca-Cola, most manufacturers seeking approval are petrochemical giants such as Eastman Chemicals, Dupont, and Indorama; and lesser-known plastic packaging manufacturers, including many from China, India, and other countries.

The end buyers of the recycled materials aren’t included in the FDA database, but many popular brands are using recycled content. Cadbury chocolate bars come in a wrapper marketed as 30 percent recycled “soft plastic packaging.” The Coca-Cola Co. in North America reports it sells soft drinks in 100 percent recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, while General Mills says its Annie’s cereal boxes use a liner made from 35 percent recycled plastic film.

Increasing recycled content in packaging may be good news for the planet, but researchers say the FDA has a lax approval process for plastic food packaging that hasn’t kept pace with the science on chemical hazards in plastics. The agency’s approval process for recycled plastics is voluntary and ignores the potential risk of chemical mixtures, researchers told EHN. Companies can seek guidance on their recycling process, but they are not required to. In addition, the FDA relies on manufacturers’ test data when it approves materials, leaving companies essentially in charge of policing themselves. Meanwhile, some studies show that recycled plastic can harbor even more toxic chemicals—such as bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, benzene and others—than virgin plastic.

FDA spokesperson Enrico Dinges defended the process, telling EHN the agency “reviews [industry] data against stringent scientific guidelines” and can “use its resources to spot test materials” if it sees an issue.

But researchers say the agency fails to protect the public from the toxic chemical soup found in recycled plastics.

“[The] FDA is most concerned about pathogen contamination coming with the recycled material, rather than chemicals,” Maricel Maffini told EHN. The approval process “is very lax,” she said.

Recycled Plastic Is More Toxic

Most recycling centers collect a mix of materials, allowing milk jugs, say, to intermingle with detergent bottles or pesticide containers and potentially absorb the hazardous chemicals from those non-food containers. Recycling facilities that are set up to collect one plastic type, such as PET bottles, can better control potential contamination, although chemicals could still be introduced from bottle caps or the adhesives in labels.

Hazardous chemicals can also be introduced when plastics are decontaminated and stabilized during recycling. Plastics degrade with recycling, “so you may need to add more stabilizers to make the material as robust as the virgin material,” Birgit Geueke, senior scientific officer at the nonprofit Food Packaging Forum, told EHN. “Recycling can therefore increase the material complexity and the presence of different additives and degradation products.”

Geueke, who led a review of more than 700 studies on chemicals in plastic food contact items, said that research on recycled plastics is limited. Despite that caveat, “there are a few studies really showing that contamination can be introduced more easily if you use recycled content.”

One study found 524 volatile organic chemicals in recycled PET versus 461 in virgin PET. Chemicals detected in the recycled PET included styrene, benzene, BPA, antimony, formaldehyde, and phthalates—chemicals linked to an array of health issues, including cancer, and the ability to hack hormones and cause development delays in children, obesity, and reproductive problems.

Most studies have focused on recycled PET, which is “not as prone to picking chemicals up,” in comparison to other plastics such as recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene, or PP, Geueke said. “HDPE milk bottles really take up chemicals during all stages of their life cycle, much more than PET bottles, and [those chemicals] are harder to remove, because they stick harder to the material,” she said.

Indeed, a study on recycled HDPE pellets obtained from various countries in the Global South identified pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals in the pellets.

FDA’s Lax Approach

But as Maffini pointed out, the FDA recommends, but does not require, the type of testing that manufacturers should do to ensure their products are safe, and it doesn’t always require them to submit any safety data, she said.

“If you tell the FDA the substance or substances used to make the plastic are not mutagenic or genotoxicant, and the exposure in the diet would be less than 0.5 parts per billion, FDA does not expect you to send any safety data [to back up these claims].”

In defense, the agency’s Dinges said, “the FDA has robust guidelines for the underlying scientific data that should be provided” by industry. But he also said, “it is the responsibility of the manufacturer to ensure that their material meets all applicable specifications.”

For recycled plastics, companies may also voluntarily submit a requested review of their recycling process. In this case, the FDA asks companies to provide a description of the process, test results showing that the process removes possible incidental contamination, and a description of how the material will be used.

The FDA further advises manufacturers to conduct “surrogate testing,” which involves challenging recycled materials with, or submerging them into, different classes of hazardous chemicals that could theoretically contaminate the plastic, to determine whether the company’s recycling processes can eliminate those toxic chemicals.

Surrogate testing is the “best available practice” for evaluating chemical migration from recycled plastics, Gueke said, although research shows it works better for PET than for other plastics like PP or HDPE. Though the FDA doesn’t require surrogate testing, Tom Neltner, executive director at Unleaded Kids, said, “I don’t think you’re going to find a market in the industry without having gone through FDA review.”

Neltner, who formerly worked with Environmental Defense Fund’s Safer Chemical Initiative, said that in his experience, big food companies are skittish about using mechanically recycled plastic on packaging that touches food.

According to the FDA database of recycled plastic applications, two-thirds of the approvals are for recycled PET, for a broad range of products from drink bottles to clam shell containers for fruits and vegetables to tea bags. Most of the remaining approvals are for recycled PP for products including clam shells, disposable tableware, cutlery, caps, and lids; recycled HDPE for grocery bags, milk and juice bottles, meat trays, and disposable tableware, and recycled polystyrene (PS) for meat and poultry trays and clam shells.

Most requests are for mechanical recycling processes, though a couple dozen were submitted for chemical recycling, which uses an energy-intensive, largely unproven, process to convert plastics back to their original monomer chemicals. [The FDA no longer evaluates chemical recycling proposals for PET because it says the process produces material of suitable purity for food-contact use.]

Outdated Approach to Evaluating Toxics

FDA’s requirement that a chemical not exceed a threshold of 0.5 parts per billion is based on cancer risk, Zoeller said, and while that number is protective for evaluating exposure to a single chemical, “I’m not sure that means a lot, when you consider the 16,000 chemicals that are put in plastic.”

In other words, the FDA’s approach doesn’t account for multiple chemical exposures, even as research shows that chemical mixtures can have significant health impact. A European study, for instance, found that a mixture of nine different chemicals had a greater impact on children’s IQ than what was expected based on individual risk assessments.

“It’s the combination of chemicals that are impacting IQ and basically stealing human potential,” Zoeller said. “We are way behind the curve,” in assessing chemical risks, he added.

Dinges responded that “while it is unlikely that appropriately sourced and controlled feedstock will experience incidental contamination to any appreciable amount, potential incidental contamination is addressed by the FDA’s surrogate testing recommendations.”

Yet the ability to control feedstock is what worries experts. Researchers who found BPA and heavy metals migrating at higher levels from recycled PET compared to virgin PET, stressed that the plastic’s safety depends on transparency and cooperation across the value chain. Moreover, surrogate testing is not required.

Neither does FDA’s approach account for endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which can act at levels in the parts per trillion by disrupting metabolism, Maffini and Zoeller commented. “This concept that there’s a threshold below which there are no effects or no adverse effects is fundamentally incorrect,” said Zoeller.

Dinges countered that the “effects on the endocrine system are just one of many areas of toxicology that the FDA evaluates,” while also repeating industry talking points. “Endocrine activation . . . does not necessarily translate into toxicity,” he wrote. “Consumption of any food (for example, sugar) can activate the endocrine system.”

Such responses have led Zoeller to conclude that FDA has “become a foil for industry,” and that their “precautionary principle is applied to industry, not public health.”

Unless government agencies can do a better job at ensuring manufacturers are keeping chemical hazards out of recycled plastic, experts think it shouldn’t be used for food contact materials.

“I’m not a big fan of recycled plastic and food contact, because it’s really hard to know [if it’s safe], and I think producers have to be more careful than when they produce virgin materials,” Geueke said, adding that she thinks that only recycled PET should be considered because the other types so readily absorb chemical contaminants.

“If you have a very good process and can prove that it gets rid of most of the contaminants . . . but nobody knows whether that really happens or not,” she said.

This article originally appeared in EHN, and is reprinted with permission.

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Customers don’t pay extra for the reusable take-out box. They simply need to download an app called Recirclable, and—to avoid paying a $15 fee—return the container within two weeks to one of 14 restaurants participating in Recirclable’s reuse program.

Johnny’s Luncheonette is among a small but growing number of restaurants taking steps to move away from single-use plastic take-out containers, which usually end up in the trash because they can’t be recycled. Worse yet, mismanaged plastic waste eventually enters the oceans, where it kills sea creatures that ingest it and breaks apart into toxic microplastics the size of a lentil or smaller.

Restaurants and food services use nearly 1 trillion pieces of disposable food service ware and packaging annually in the U.S., according to Upstream, a reuse advocacy organization.

Johnny’s Luncheonette began offering the reusable take-out containers earlier this year because its owner, Kay Masterson, was tired of the Sisyphean search for an environmentally friendly disposable take-out box. “Ideas like Recirclable are a much better option because it takes out the conversation of, ‘Well, which takeout container is less bad?’” she said. “Reuse is just smart. It’s smart resource-wise. It’s smart cost-wise.”

Masterson pays more per piece for the reusable packaging but said that she expects costs will drop below disposable packaging as more customers use the service. Thus far, only dozens of customers have selected the reusable option.

Many case studies show that while reusable containers cost more upfront, businesses start to save fairly quickly. What’s more, “It’s not just about saving money but about building resiliency so that you have shorter supply chains without so much global dependency,” said Elizabeth Balkan, director of Reloop America, at Reloop, a nonprofit operating in both Europe and the U.S.

Moving from single use to reuse is one of the biggest opportunities for reducing plastic pollution, according to a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a reuse pioneer. Reuse services targeting food businesses are growing quickly in the U.S., especially for arenas and stadiums, colleges and K-12 schools, corporate offices, and other institutions.

Startups offering logistics and dishwashing are proliferating, as are nonprofit organizations providing strategic support, funding, and advocacy. But reuse is still far from the norm in the U.S. Communities need shared reuse infrastructure for the practice to pick up steam, according to Crystal Dreisbach, CEO of Upstream. Cohesive, city-scale systems could help shift consumer habits and increase the volume of materials being reused, which is essential for both economic and environmental impact. Enabling policies would hasten the transition.

“You can’t have consumers running all over town, dropping off things in [different] places. You’re going to need big infrastructure that will accommodate this massive systemic change away from disposable to reusable,” Dreisbach said.

Reuse on the Rise

Dishwashing and sanitizing systems are also emerging, since they’re key to any reuse system. Restaurants handle their own dishwashing in Recirclable’s system. Other reuse companies provide dishwashing, including via mobile units at large venues, or contract it out to large washing stations like Re:Dish, which operates in New York City and Philadelphia and is equipped with technologies for tracking and sorting packaging.

ReThink Disposable provides free reuse consulting to restaurants, institutions, and large venues in Minnesota, California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New England. The nonprofit also raises funding to buy reusable packaging and/or install dishwashers at restaurants and food delivery programs run by nonprofits, such as Truro Community Kitchen.

Reusable containers come in ceramic, glass, stainless steel, and plastic, depending on the venue, but, for takeout, “most restaurant owners prefer durable, No. 5 plastic [polypropylene type] because they store and stack easily,” are lightweight, and can be microwaved, said Amber Schmidt, New England zero-waste specialist at ReThink Disposable.

While “reusable plastic may be an imperfect solution, it is still a critically important step in the right direction,” toward an overall reduction in plastic packaging, Balkan said.

Volume Is Key

Recirclable’s volume is small. Its users are dedicated customers who follow it from restaurant to restaurant, Bell told Civil Eats. “We’re in the thousands—and we’d love to be in the tens and hundreds of thousands—but we have to grow the network” of restaurants.

(Photo credit: Meg Wilcox)

“The biggest hurdle with Recirclable is just getting the word out there and changing habits,” said Masterson.

Recirclable’s small network of restaurants also limits its growth. Customers must live near a restaurant where they can return the container, or the system doesn’t work for them. The number of steps required is another barrier. Johnny’s Luncheonette Manager David Martinez said that when some interested people learn they have to download an app and put in their credit card, they decline.

“We recognize that can cause friction,” said Bell, who won an award from the EPA to develop a new system, launching this year, that will be accessed with one tap of a credit card.

Recirclable is not alone in having difficulty reaching volume—“the cornerstone” of reuse, Dreisbach said. “You cannot make the system work, you cannot make the economics work, until you have volume.”

Re:Dish’s washing station in Brooklyn, for example, can handle 75,000 reusables daily, but “we’re not anywhere near there right now,” CEO and founder Caroline Vanderlip told Civil Eats. Re:Dish is on track to handle 4.5 million containers this year, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the trillion pieces of packaging used in the food sector, she said.

Transformational Change

Private investment, government funding—including from the Inflation Reduction Act—and forward service contracts with large anchor clients such as arenas could support such infrastructure development. The nonprofit Perpetual, in fact, is now working to design and implement city-scale reusable food service ware solutions in collaboration with Ann Arbor, Michigan; Hilo, Hawaii; Galveston, Texas; and Savannah, Georgia.

Laws mandating reuse would hasten the transition, as they have in Europe, where reuse is more widespread, Balkan told Civil Eats. Oregon, California, and Maine have passed laws moving in this direction that will raise funds for reuse, she said.

But big consumer brands also need to lead the way on shaping consumer attitudes about reuse, said Driesbach. “They have a great deal of power to decide what that packaging is,” she said, adding that consumers are ready for reuse. “COVID really showed us what appeared in our trash cans at home because we were all getting takeout. Awareness about trash has increased hugely in the last five years.”

The post Restaurants Create a Mound of Plastic Waste. Some Are Working to Fix That. appeared first on Civil Eats.

https://civileats.com/2024/04/29/should-bioplastics-be-allowed-in-organic-compost/ https://civileats.com/2024/04/29/should-bioplastics-be-allowed-in-organic-compost/#comments Mon, 29 Apr 2024 13:52:38 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=56077 Ela knows first-hand how central compost is to his organic farm—and all organic agriculture. It helps increase yields and the nutrient content of crops, reduce synthetic fertilizer use, and improve soil health and water retention, among other benefits. But he’s concerned that a new proposal to rewrite U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) compost rules could […]

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Steve Ela is an organic fruit grower in western Colorado who relies on compost to nourish his heirloom tomato crop each year. He plants nitrogen-rich legumes and other perennial cover crops amongst his pear, apple, plum, peach, and cherry trees, but he buys a commercial compost product to keep his 100-acre, fourth-generation family farm thriving.

Ela knows first-hand how central compost is to his organic farm—and all organic agriculture. It helps increase yields and the nutrient content of crops, reduce synthetic fertilizer use, and improve soil health and water retention, among other benefits. But he’s concerned that a new proposal to rewrite U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) compost rules could dramatically change the meaning of organic compost for farmers.

The USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) currently requires compost to be derived from plant and animal materials, such as manure, food scraps, leaves, and straw. Newspapers or other recycled paper without colored inks are the only synthetic feedstocks allowed.

The proposal, filed by the nonprofit certification and advocacy organization Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) in November, asks the USDA to allow synthetic, biodegradable food packaging and service ware as a feedstock for certified organic compost produced at commercial and municipal compost facilities.

The USDA’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), which guides the agency on standard setting, will decide at its biannual meeting on April 30 and May 1 whether to grant the change. BPI’s request is sparking yet another heated debate in a long, contentious history about what can and should qualify as organic under USDA’s program.

“The whole purpose of organics was to limit the number of synthetics used in agriculture,” Ela, a former NOSB chair who works part-time for the National Organic Coalition, told Civil Eats. “The only synthetics that are allowed to go through get pretty close scrutiny for environmental and human health and whether they’re actually needed.” He said that these materials don’t meet the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) standards, “as noble as the idea [of compostable packaging] is.”

Biodegradable food packaging and service ware—including cups, bowls, bottles, cutlery, and bags—is replacing traditional single-use plastics as companies seek to reduce their plastics use as well as the climate impacts of plastics derived from fossil fuels. By diverting food scraps and packaging to a composter and allowing it to degrade into a product that nourishes soil, experts say compostable food packaging also helps cut plastic pollution and methane gas emissions from landfills.

“We feel that there’s a lot of risks and not a lot of gain for us.”

The trouble is that compostable products are not necessarily more benign than the traditional plastics they are replacing: They can be made from plants such as corn, sugarcane or bamboo, and also from petroleum products. Though they are designed to fully break down under controlled conditions at an industrial composter, compostable products are nevertheless made with the same processes as conventional plastics, which means they contain many chemical fillers, additives, and dyes. Additionally, they can leave microplastics behind when they decompose.

Because not enough is known about how long biodegradable microplastics may linger in the ground and harm soil life, pollute waterways, or be taken up by plants, many organic farmers and commercial composters are calling for further scientific review or want to see NOSB reject the petition.

“We feel that there’s a lot of risks and not a lot of gain for us,” to accept compost derived in part from biodegradable packaging materials, Ela told Civil Eats.

In written comments to NOSB penned on behalf of the National Organics Coalition, Ela was more pointed. “Organic lands are not a dumping ground to get rid of problematic wastes,” he wrote. “The petition to include these materials is because manufacturers are looking for a way to easily dispose of these products . . . The reality is that the biggest issue is our societal embracement of single-use packaging.”

BPI’s Petition Motivated by California Law

Landfills are the third-largest producer of methane gas in the U.S., and as states—from California to Massachusetts—set ambitious climate goals to divert food waste from landfills, commercial composters are being pressed to accept more than just food scraps.

BPI submitted the petition to the USDA on behalf of its members, who include composters, municipalities, and compostable product manufacturers, such as top bioplastics producers BASF, Eastman, Corbion, and NatureWorks.

The petition frames the move as advancing “climate-smart” agriculture by helping states, specifically California and Washington, achieve food-waste diversion goals. BPI states that the NOP’s current compost rules are an obstacle to states achieving their goals. “Composters are not able to market finished compost as an input to organic agriculture if they accept compostable packaging as a feedstock . . .”states the petition, adding that it’s a “major barrier for some composters, leading to decisions not to accept compostable packaging.”

In California, commercial composters sell 75 percent of their product to agriculture, and a significant portion goes to farmers who want organic compost even if they farm conventionally, said Neil Edgar, executive director of the California Compost Coalition, a lobbying organization that represents roughly half of the commercial composters in the state. Edgar has seen that California farmers “believe [organic compost] is a higher quality; that’s what they want, and in some cases, they’re contractually obligated with whoever their buyers are.”

But BPI is especially motivated by a provision in California law that would sunset the sale of compostable packaging not allowed by NOP on January 1, 2026. Such a ban would crimp the nascent compostable packaging market’s ability to grow. Compostable bioplastics are now a more expensive, niche product that comprise less than one percent of the $700 billion plastics market.  (The compostable market value is roughly $5 billion.)

Critics say BPI’s petition is designed to expand markets opportunities for its manufacturer members, without addressing the concerns of organic farmers.

“Without updating NOP’s compost rules, compostable packaging will be taken off the table by 2026, leaving food businesses without many sustainable packaging options.”

“The petition makes no argument that seems relevant to organic agriculture. It’s not even scientific. It’s a complaint,” Tom Gilbert, the owner of Black Dirt Farm, a small Vermont composter that takes plant-based fibers like egg cartons and coffee filters, but not compostable bioplastics, told Civil Eats.

Rhodes Yepsen, executive director at BPI, doesn’t deny that California’s deadline is driving BPI’s petition, but he says it’s about more than benefitting manufacturers.

“The organic industry has been an early adopter of compostable packaging, investing in research and development to launch these new materials, and proudly promoting the role it plays in their sustainability goals,” he said, naming food retailers PCC Community Markets and Oryana Coop, which are both members of NOC, and manufacturers Humble Chips and Sun and Swell. “Without updating NOP’s compost rules, the option of compostable packaging will be taken off the table by 2026 in California, leaving organic and conventional food businesses alike without many sustainable packaging options.”

Critics say further that BPI is seeking a significant change to organic compost rules without asking for technical review, which is “highly unusual,” according to Harriet Behar, a Wisconsin organic farmer and a former NOSB board chair. Petitioners typically ask for review by an outside scientific organization to determine whether their substance meets the criteria of the Organic Food Production Act, Behar told Civil Eats. But in this case, “[NOSB] is planning a vote without a technical review,” she said. “They’re getting a lot of pressure that this has to be answered quickly.”

Microplastics and PFAS Concerns

Both Behar and Ela said the industry standards for compostable materials, set by ASTM International, are insufficient and inherently allow for residual debris. ASTM requires products to fully decompose within 12 weeks under controlled conditions at a commercial compost facility. A material is considered fully decomposed if less than 10 percent of it is left after passing it through a two-millimeter sieve.

By ASTM standards, then, a material is considered compostable if any remaining material is not easily visible to the naked eye.

Field studies, such as a recent investigation by the Composting Consortium, show that by this measure, compostable products largely break down at commercial facilities. Microplastics could remain, however, and break down “very slowly, or not at all, outside of controlled conditions, such as in a farm field,” Ela wrote in his comments to the NOP.

Studies to date show mixed results. One study coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany found that biodegradable bags contained large amounts of microplastics less than one millimeter in size that could remain in soil for a long time, and cautioned against widespread use of the bags without further research. Another study from Bayreuth University found that fertilizer from compost facilities contained large quantities of biodegradable plastics.

A meta-review of research by the University of Vermont found widespread microplastic contamination in compost materials though traditional plastic particles were more predominant than biodegradable plastic particles. “We have not typically observed compostable plastic particles in compost samples,” said Eric Roy, an associate professor of environmental sciences at the University of Vermont, who co-authored the meta-review and will soon be publishing original research on the topic.

Spanish researchers also found no debris less than five millimeters in size from biodegradable plastics in compost collected from different facilities, and they concluded that compostable materials were safe if composted correctly.

Such negative findings lead Yepsen to dismiss microplastic concerns. “We need to be realistic that microplastics in compost are a result of contamination from non-compostable plastic, and composting facilities receive contamination even if they don’t accept compostable packaging,” he told Civil Eats.

Roy, however, said that the jury is still out. Some studies do find biodegradable microplastics and more research is needed to understand how long the different types may linger in the environment and the potential harm they could cause to soil life.

“Theoretically, they will persist in the environment for a shorter amount of time than traditional plastics will,” he said, but there’s “some evidence that these materials are not necessarily entirely benign in the soil environment.” Biodegradable microplastics can affect soil stability and plant growth, and potentially release chemical additives, such as PFAS.

“Potentially, you could see alteration in the soil structure, which could alter water retention, or the suitability of the soil for key invertebrates like earthworms,” said, Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology and director of Plymouth University’s Marine Institute, who is lead researcher on a four-year investigation into the fate of biodegradable plastics in the environment.

BPI and other certifiers require products to pass additional tests for soil ecotoxicity as well as be PFAS-free. While that’s a step in the right direction, the soil ecotoxicity test “doesn’t capture everything that might be happening within the soil environment, such as effects on microbial communities or effects that take longer to manifest,” said Roy.

PFAS in food packaging has long concerned both composters and farmers: One study found that compost containing biodegradable food packaging contained PFAS levels up to 20 times higher than compost made from manure or from separated food waste mixed with grass clippings and livestock bedding.

“There is a long history of industry, food processing and municipalities using agricultural land as a place to get rid of their wastes.”

State laws banning PFAS from food contact materials and the Food and Drug Administration’s recent announcement that manufacturers will no longer use PFAS on fiber-based food packaging may begin to reduce contamination. Nevertheless, a certain level of unintentionally added PFAS is unavoidable, experts say, and the FDA has not eliminated PFAS on all food contact materials that may end up at a compost facility.

PFAS pollution on farm fields from sewage sludge is exactly why NOP should not allow compostable packaging as a compost feedstock, Ela said. “There is a long history of industry, food processing and municipalities using agricultural land as a place to get rid of their wastes,” he said, citing cheese making whey and recycled wallboard as well as sewage sludge. But “organic farms have been protected historically.”

Composters Are Wary

Commercial composters are sympathetic to the environmental goals associated with compostable packaging, but think the BPI petition goes too far. “The blanket acceptance for any compostable materials that meet ASTM standards goes beyond what most composters are comfortable with,” Edgar said. Composters’ number one challenge is plastics contamination and discerning truly compostable from “look-alike” non-compostable materials, he added. Truth in labeling laws, like those passed in California, Washington, and Colorado will help, but it’s going to take time, he said.

“If [fossil fuel-based plastics] can be replaced with bioplastics that have a reasonably sustainable footprint, that would be the ideal world, but we’re so far away from that,” Edgar said. Composters “deal every day with the reality of the material that’s coming in their gates and at this point in time, compostable plastics are just another single-use plastic that is clogging up the system and creating contamination.”

The U.S. Composting Council, a national trade, certification and advocacy group whose members include composters, government officials, researchers and compostable product manufacturers, declined to take a position in its written comments to NOSB on whether compostable packaging should be allowed in the NOP program, although it did support other changes to update the definition of compost.

“I think that this whole petition is an act of defensiveness,” Tom Gilbert, the owner of Black Dirt Farm, told Civil Eats.

Further Erosion of USDA Organic Standards

Regardless of NOSB’s decision, it’s unlikely that many organic farmers will accept compost from facilities that take in packaging. “It’s not like organic growers are saying, ‘Hey, we want compostable synthetics in our compost.’ In fact, we’re hearing the opposite,” said Ela.

“Organic consumers don’t want PFAS or other chemicals in their food, and they expect that the organic farmer will be stewarding the organic lands,” agreed Behar.

While Roy understands that position, he said “there’s multiple reasonable perspectives” on the petition. “If we’re going to move toward a circular economy and recycle nutrients, it’s going to inevitably bring up some questions about how stringent should we be with some of these certifications.”

For Black Dirt Farm’s Gilbert, the willingness on the part of NOSB to advance the petition is why people feel increasingly disconnected from the organic standards. “Just look at what’s happened in poultry, allowing porches and other ridiculous exceptions that allow industrial operators to claim organic. The local foods and local economy movement is an antidote to that,” he added.

Ela agreed. “We’re trying to protect organic integrity and the value of the seal. The more we dilute that, the more we see people saying that it’s not worth it. That is the bottom line.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2024/04/29/should-bioplastics-be-allowed-in-organic-compost/feed/ 3 https://civileats.com/2023/09/07/what-the-rapid-rise-of-norways-farmed-salmon-industry-means-for-the-rest-of-the-world/ https://civileats.com/2023/09/07/what-the-rapid-rise-of-norways-farmed-salmon-industry-means-for-the-rest-of-the-world/#comments Thu, 07 Sep 2023 08:00:28 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=53091 The New Fish became a bestseller in Norway when it was published there last year. The clothing company Patagonia translated it into English for U.S. release in July. In this engaging, fast read, investigative journalists Simen Sætre and Kjetil Østli punch holes in the Norwegian salmon industry’s messaging about “working within nature.” According to their […]

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The New Fish: The Truth about Farmed Salmon and the Consequences We Can No Longer Ignore is a devastating yet slyly humorous account of the harms caused by 50 years of salmon farming. Much of the book centers around Norway, the world’s top producer and exporter of farmed salmon. There, the fish are primarily farmed in open net pens along the coast and in fjords, where escapes are common. The farmed fish spread disease, interbreed with wild salmon, and ultimately contribute to the sharp decline in Norwegian wild salmon populations.

The New Fish became a bestseller in Norway when it was published there last year. The clothing company Patagonia translated it into English for U.S. release in July.

In this engaging, fast read, investigative journalists Simen Sætre and Kjetil Østli punch holes in the Norwegian salmon industry’s messaging about “working within nature.” According to their reporting, problems range from the many illnesses suffered by penned fish to sea lice and the pesticides used to treat them. The book also examines how the disappearance of wild salmon impacts Indigenous populations and rural fishing villages, and the ways salmon farming decimates other fisheries.

“This river has been seeing declines in wild stock for years. It makes me sad, so I stopped fishing the wild salmon, and now it’s brown trout for the most part.”

Woven together, the chapters create a disturbing narrative about open-water salmon farming and Norway’s outsized role in shaping today’s global aquaculture industry—including its deep involvement in setting up Chile’s industry. It’s a good entry point for readers unfamiliar with the problems associated with salmon farming, but it also sheds new light on animal welfare concerns and the silencing of researchers.

With much of the farmed salmon consumed in the U.S. coming from Norway, Chile, and Canada, the book is an important read for understanding the environmental and social issues embedded in the choice of buying farmed salmon products. It also reinforces the importance of protecting wild salmon populations and the need for reforms such as closed water pens and greater producer transparency about feed choices, disease treatments, mortality rates, and other concerns.

Civil Eats spoke to the authors to discuss the book, their five-year investigation, and the lessons it has to offer consumers.

What led you to investigate salmon farming?

Kjetil Østli: Simen and I wrote for a major newspaper 20 years ago in Norway, and we really liked to work together as a team. Years later, we found that we wanted to join forces again. I am an editor of a nature magazine in Norway and a fisherman as well.

Simen Sætre: I worked in a weekly newspaper as an investigative reporter. Salmon farming grew very fast in Norway, starting as a small industry to become one of the major industries on the coast. This big business started to put pressure on scientists when they found results the industry didn’t like.

When we looked further, we saw some scientists working on cases that were positive for the industry, and they got funding and good careers, but there were other scientists working on such things as environmental toxins in salmon farming, or on the consequences for wild salmon—and these scientists had problems in their careers or with getting funding for new projects. We started really looking into that.

Østli: I remember the first days when we called these scientists and almost all of them hung up on us, [saying things like] “I don’t want to ruin my vacation,” or “Please don’t call me. I’ve said enough.” And it was, “OK, let’s start this project because the answers were so telling.”

Sætre: It’s a very touchy issue that you don’t expect to be touchy.

Østli, what do you fish for now? In the book, you wrote about losing the experience of fishing for wild salmon that you grew up with.

Østli: Brown trout. I feel sorry for wild salmon in a way. I’m not saying that farmed salmon is the only reason that the wild salmon are having trouble, but you go to famous Norwegian rivers that are the home of the Atlantic salmon, and you know that this river has been destroyed by a chemical used in salmon farming. This river has been seeing declines in wild stock for years. It makes me sad, so I stopped fishing the wild salmon.

“Humans are so creative but, at the same time, we can be very short-sighted, and especially when we can make a lot of money very fast.”

Sætre: I talked to some of these anglers. It’s almost like a trauma for them. They had so many good experiences in the river, and suddenly the wild salmon just disappear. It’s really a loss for some of these people.

The book looks past the question of whether aquaculture is good or bad and explores instead why things are the way they are. What did you learn?

Østli: Salmon farming started in Norway as an additional thing for farmers and fishermen on the coast. In the beginning it was so small, but in 50 years, it has become an international industry. A consequence of fast growth is that regulations come afterwards. For instance, if farmers have trouble with sea lice . . . what do we do? We use chemicals. And then the next question comes: Will these chemicals harm the shrimp, crabs, or lobsters in the fjords? The regulations and knowledge are always one step behind.

Sætre: It’s also, of course, the question of money. The story about salmon farming shows both the best and the worst in humans, because the best is the creative ability to find new ways of producing food and solving problems. Humans are so creative but, at the same time, we can be very short-sighted, and especially when we can make a lot of money very fast.

What surprised you the most during your reporting?

Østli: Salmon farming grew on us because we learned so much. We got obsessed with this topic as we dug into sources. The newspapers weren’t covering it.

Sætre: They normally don’t have the expertise, so they just write what the company officials tell them. It’s hard to get out to the farms. If you walk around Norwegian villages, you can see the cows, the pigs, but you never get to see the salmon because it’s underwater, out at sea, and we’re not allowed to go there.

But it was surprising to see how this business that has been thought of as working within nature—with the pristine water, these nice salmon farmers from the villages—has become big business with multinational corporations. And what they actually do with the salmon, like putting the salmon into hot water to remove lice, which makes them panic; genetically modifying the salmon to become triploid so that they can’t have offspring; even the use of “cleaner fish” to remove salmon lice. Millions of cleaner fish just die in the pens. It has become a very brutal industry in a way, and it has had some very dire consequences, such as on the stock of wild salmon.

“You can have a salmon farm and half the fish can die and you don’t get any punishment.”

Østli: In the beginning we thought about fish as fish, not like a dog or a pig or a cow. But salmon grew on us. [We were moved by] what this fish experiences, and what we learned about fish behavioral research, about the illnesses, about salmon growing so fast their hearts ruptured. That became a turning point for me.

Sætre: Fish are actually quite smart. They are conscious animals. But we can’t hear a fish when it’s in pain with sores from lice or diseases. You have to research it and then you realize, wow, there’s a lot of pain out there.

Are there regulations for fish mortality in salmon farms?

Sætre: No. You can have a salmon farm and half the fish can die and you don’t get any punishment. As long as the profits are high, you can have a very high mortality rate. There are some laws about fish welfare, but the government did not follow them.

Østli: We worked hard to find the mortality statistics from the different farms, but you can’t get that information. The companies report to the government how many fish die every month, but the government keeps this information secret. I complained many times through the Freedom of Information Act, and at last got some numbers from years back.

Sætre: That’s how we found out that some of the farms are doing very well and others not that much. Some have reported 3 percent mortality. Others report 29 percent mortality, which is a huge gap in animal welfare.

Østli: There’s a lot of pathogens, viruses, and bacteria just swimming in the water along the coast, and they swim from one fish farm to another, so there’s huge problems with open wounds in the fish and various anemias, bacteria, and, of course, lice.

“A main thing is that when people buy, say, a salmon sushi, they should be aware of what they’re buying, and they should demand to know where this salmon came from.”

Is there opposition to salmon farming in Norway?

Sætre: It’s growing but most people are not so aware. There have been groups engaging in the opposition, especially along the coast, not so much in the cities. But still in some of these communities, the salmon farms give a lot of money, so to speak your voice is not so easy. But I think people are awakening. This book has been part of that. People have read it and gained new knowledge and formed their opinions. A lot of people say they don’t eat farmed salmon anymore, while only a few years ago, you wouldn’t hear that.

Østli: Simen has been on tour all along the coast. He has been giving speeches and going into the debates in coastal town after coastal town from the south of Norway to the tip in the north. He goes to town hall meetings with 60 to 70 people.

Sætre: Maybe even 100. But, in the small villages, it has been almost taboo. It has been hard for people to talk about what’s happening in the fjords and the rivers. This book has given people an occasion to speak out and discuss what happens to their community.

What are the key takeaways you want people to get from your book?

Østli: First, it’s not like the commercials: “The best of nature.” It’s an industry. They could have made car tires. We want to scratch that pristine image.

There is a trend, especially among young people, to be engaged on animal welfare and in having more informed choices. We wanted to contribute to that. People can see for themselves what are Norwegian salmon—what makes them looks so fresh, red, and orange.

We want to push the industry in a more sustainable direction, away a little bit from the money and to the longer sustainable perspective and the animal welfare perspective. We want the farmers to see that consumers around the world are getting more information about how food is produced, and they have to follow up on that and do their best.

Sætre: A main thing is that when people buy, say, a salmon sushi, they should be aware of what they’re buying, and they should demand to know where this salmon came from. Did it have lice? Which kind of pesticides did they use to kill the lice? Did the fish have viruses or sores? Was it sick? And did the producer try to help the situation with wild salmon, [such as by preventing farmed salmon from escaping] or did it not?

“People in the U.S. should be aware, because as long as this is such a lucrative business, there will be attempts to start salmon farms and [undo protective] legislation.”

Østli: And where does the fish feed come from? Does it come from soybeans from the rainforest in Brazil? It says almost nothing on the packages, other than “Norwegian salmon.”

Sætre: We want people to know the truth. People should also know that there are alternatives.

Salmon can be produced in closed pens, for example, which will be better for the environment and maybe also for fish. There are new and better technologies that could be used. There are other choices about feed. Producers can make a lot of choices, but they won’t do it unless people demand it.

Where do you see salmon farming being done responsibly?

Østli: There are some small salmon farms on the Norwegian coast that do things differently.

Sætre: There are some salmon branded as ecological. But because of the lice, the producers are in a technological crisis. They’re trying to make salmon factories out at sea, and they’re also trying land-based, and you can also have closed pens in the fjords. I think the most promising is the closed pens, and we see that in Canada. The Canadian government has already demanded a transition to closed pens. These are alternatives—and it’s just for the producers to choose them.

What can you say about the U.S. industry?

Sætre: The industry in the U.S. is still quite small. There’s much more production in Canada. People in the U.S. should be aware, because as long as this is such a lucrative business, there will be attempts to start salmon farms and [undo protective] legislation. These are shrewd lobbyists.

We eat a lot of imported salmon in the U.S., though we have wild-caught salmon from Alaska.

Sætre: I live in Norway, and I have never tasted wild salmon because there are so few, and it’s not commercially sold anymore. We saw wild salmon when we went to Canada for reporting. I don’t think I tasted it, but it struck me as a paradox. People should taste it while they still can because maybe in a lifetime, it will disappear.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The post What the Rapid Rise of Norway’s Farmed Salmon Industry Means For the Rest of the World appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> https://civileats.com/2023/09/07/what-the-rapid-rise-of-norways-farmed-salmon-industry-means-for-the-rest-of-the-world/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2023/08/28/these-manure-digesters-incorporate-food-scraps-does-that-make-them-better/ https://civileats.com/2023/08/28/these-manure-digesters-incorporate-food-scraps-does-that-make-them-better/#comments Mon, 28 Aug 2023 08:00:29 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=52983 The waste grease, collected from a local pizzeria, a Mexican restaurant, and a pub, will be mixed with manure in the dairy farm’s anerobic co-digester and converted into renewable energy. The system generates nearly 6,000 megawatt hours of renewable electricity annually—enough to power 550 homes per year. Methane gas digesters are used by dairy farms […]

The post These Manure Digesters Incorporate Food Scraps. Does That Make Them Better? appeared first on Civil Eats.

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A bright blue tanker truck rumbles up the road to Longview Farm, a dairy operation in western Massachusetts. The driver, Luke Page, hops down from the cab and wrestles to connect a fat hose from the truck to pipe protruding from the ground. The pipe leads to a food waste collection tank and, after securing the hose, Page twists open a valve and begins pumping 2,000 gallons of spent cooking oil into the tank.

The waste grease, collected from a local pizzeria, a Mexican restaurant, and a pub, will be mixed with manure in the dairy farm’s anerobic co-digester and converted into renewable energy. The system generates nearly 6,000 megawatt hours of renewable electricity annually—enough to power 550 homes per year.

Methane gas digesters are used by dairy farms to convert manure into energy and reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The addition of food waste in co-digesters enables small and mid-sized dairies like Longview, which has 600 cows and doesn’t produce enough manure for a traditional methane digester, to access the technology. The approach allows them to lower their carbon footprints, earn extra revenue, and tap into methane digesters’ other benefits, which include the creation of organic fertilizers, also called “digestates,” for use on the farm.

Co-digesters are designed for dairies with anywhere from 75 to 2,000 cows and may be an improvement over methane digesters built on top of large waste lagoons on centralized animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Those systems are expensive, often dangerous for workers, and are associated with a bevy of problems, including propping up industrial-scale agriculture.

Longview Farm’s co-digester is one of six in New England owned and operated by Vanguard Renewables, a U.S. pioneer of the technology. Vanguard was acquired last year by BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investment managers, and has big plans to build dozens more co-digesters across the U.S.

Though farmers have long added organic wastes to their methane digesters, Vanguard’s concerted efforts to develop anerobic digesters that handle both food waste and manure for smaller dairies is a relatively new development in the U.S. The technology offers an alternative approach to turning dairy waste—and food waste—into renewable energy, but questions remain about whether it can scale up and still benefit small dairies and the environment simultaneously. PFAS contamination in food waste getting spread on farm fields is a potential concern.

Co-digestion has “been going on in Europe for 30 years,” while the U.S. is just ramping up the technology, said John Hanselman, chief strategy officer and cofounder of Vanguard Renewables. “We’ve kind of cracked the code [of the logistics, technology, and economics for the U.S.,] and are hoping to make it a huge part of America’s lifestyle.”

Matthew Lillie of Vanguard Renewables stands at the top of the co-digester at Longview Farm. The fertilizer produced by the co-digester is stored in the tank behind it. Photo by Meg Wilcox.

Longview Farm’s Closed-Loop System

The co-digester at Longview Farm is an enclosed tank buried 16 feet underground. Only the top of the 600,000-gallon tank is visible. Standing at its edge, Denise Barstow Manz says the co-digester works like a stomach: Microorganisms convert the carbs, fats, and proteins in the wastes into methane gas, which is stripped of air pollutants like sulfur before it’s burned to create electricity.

Barstow-Manz, the education director at Longview Farm, is part of the seventh generation to farm the land that has been in her family since 1806. She recently had her first child and now devotes her time to engaging with the public, while her father, uncle, and cousins run the day-to-day farm operations.

The Barstows installed the co-digester in 2013, following years of unstable milk prices. Barstow Manz was in college then. “It was one of the things that made me want to come back” to the farm, she says.

Roughly three-quarters of the 38,000 tons of waste digested by the system annually comes from area food manufacturers, restaurants, and grocery stores.

Cabot Creamery, a regional dairy cooperative, delivers its manufacturing waste to the co-digester, and has created something of a closed-loop relationship with the farm. Longview sells all its milk to the dairy processor, which produces butter and powdered milk at its nearby facility in Springfield. Cabot not only recycles its processing waste at the farm, but it also purchases the bulk of the energy the co-digester produces through renewable energy credits, buying enough electricity to power its entire butter-processing operation.

“That’s sort of the holy grail; the commercial side of our business and the cooperative side of our business are helping each other in a way that’s dynamically beneficial for both,” Jed Davis, director of sustainability at Cabot Creamery, told Civil Eats.

Cabot took an early interest in efforts to scale down anaerobic digesters for New England-sized dairies because it believed its dairies could benefit economically, environmentally, and socially from co-digestion, Davis said.

By benefiting socially, Davis means odor control: co-digesters produce an odorless organic fertilizer. That’s important for dairies in regions where a growing number of people live. Longview, for example, is located within an 18-mile radius of five colleges and the city of Springfield. Before installing the co-digester, the farm received odor complaints when it spread manure on the fields it rents from landowners, and that was a problem.

“We are very reliant on our neighbors and the people in our communities who value agriculture and have decided to let us farm their grandpa’s old farm . . . rather than sell it for development,” said Barstow Manz.

Denise Barstow Manz inside the dairy barn at Longview Farm. Photo by Meg Wilcox.

Co-digester Benefits

The co-digester produces enough liquid, organic fertilizer to meet 90 percent of the farm’s annual fertilizer needs for its hay, alfalfa, and corn crops. It’s a “big savings for us . . . and we see increased crop yields. We see enhanced soil health,” Barstow Manz said.

Co-digesters also produce bedding for animals by separating out large solids and the woody parts of the cow’s diet that aren’t broken down by the digester. The heat from the digestion process produces a pathogen-free fiber.

It’s a “big savings for us … and we see increased crop yields. We see enhanced soil health.”

Longview’s system also generates enough waste heat to meet the farm’s needs plus eight homes in the community. Vanguard developed a prototype community waste heat system at the farm, with a state grant.

Co-digesters help keep food waste out of landfills and incinerators and reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers, yielding potentially significant GHG emissions reductions. U.S. food loss and waste from farm to kitchen generates the equivalent GHG of 42 coal-fired power plants, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That figure includes food losses during farming, processing, distribution, retail operations, and consumption (e.g., in homes, institutions, and restaurants).

Synthetic fertilizer production and use meanwhile contributes 2 percent of global GHG emissions annually, while livestock accounts for nearly one-third of all human-caused methane gas emissions in the U.S.—though the majority of that comes from cow burps, not the manure itself.

PFAS and Other Risks

Adding food waste to methane digesters, however, raises the thorny issue of potential microplastic and PFAS contamination in fertilizer. Farms that take in food waste and then spread the digestate on their fields, could unwittingly be contributing to PFAS contamination in the environment, warned Tyler Lobdell, staff attorney at Food and Water Watch.

The EPA has found rising levels of PFAS in food waste, originating possibly from the use of contaminated irrigation water, food processing equipment, or packaging materials that come in contact with food.  The limited data suggest that food packaging and compostable serviceware may be the largest contributors of PFAS in food waste, though fish and meat are also significant contributors, according to the EPA.

Farms that take in food waste and then spread the digestate on their fields could unwittingly be contributing to PFAS contamination in the environment, warned a Food and Water Watch attorney.

Researchers at the University of Vermont additionally found “early evidence” that microplastics and larger plastic pieces may be present in many food waste-derived composts and digestates, and that those plastics could be transferred to farm fields when applied as soil amendments. Over time these plastics may accumulate in soils, break down, and release chemicals that are harmful to human health and the ecosystem.

In response, Vanguard public relations manager Billy Kepner told Civil Eats, “We are concerned about [PFAS], but it’s something that we try to mitigate as much as possible.”

He later elaborated, “Maintaining a diversified input stream—of dairy farm manure, bulk fluid processing wastes, and organic waste from packaged materials—is a key component to our environmental risk management for matters such as microplastics and PFAS. We do not receive or process higher-risk materials such as biosolids.”

Biosolids, or sewage sludge, are sometimes mixed with food waste at compost facilities. They have far higher levels of PFAS than food waste alone, according to the EPA, and have caused widespread contamination across many farms.

Vanguard doesn’t allow food packaging or compostable serviceware in its digesters, either. It sends packaged food waste to a de-packaging facility before adding it to its co-digesters, said Kepner. Nonetheless, the Vermont researchers cite studies showing that some portion of packaging remains in food waste even when mechanical de-packaging machines, or humans, remove it.

Food and Water Watch’s Lobdell would prefer to see food waste reduced at the source, rather than sent to a digester. Reducing food waste at the source, at the scale that’s needed on a rapidly over-heating planet, remains a challenge.

Other advocates would like to see tighter laws to ban PFAS from food packaging and manufacturing, and to require testing at compost facilities and co-digesters.

“At this point, people are considering food waste to be a relatively clean source, regarding PFAS and other toxics, compared to sewage sludge, but I think testing is needed to verify that,” said Tracy Frisch, author of a Sierra Club report on PFAS contamination on farms and chair of the Clean Air Action Network of Glens Falls, New York.

Caleb Goossen, organic crop and conservation specialist at Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, agrees with Frisch, though “packaging is a different matter,” he said. Goossen is more concerned about food packaging, compostable serviceware, and biosolids getting mixed into compost and digestates.

Barstow Manz deferred to Vanguard’s expertise on the question of potential PFAS pollution at Longview Farm.

Additional environmental problems have been associated with methane digesters at CAFOs, from air pollution in disadvantaged communities to ammonia releases from the digestate to methane gas leaking from anaerobic digesters built on top of large waste lagoons. Worker protection on CAFOs have also been found wanting in Civil Eats’ investigative series, Injured and Invisible.

Methane digesters at CAFOs are also viewed as propping up a highly unsustainable industry.

The “significant concern of methane emissions in agriculture . . . directly correlates with the rise in mega-dairies and the necessity to handle waste in liquid lagoons,” said Lobdell.

Enclosed, well managed co-digesters on small farms may have fewer downsides, and there are a lot of dairies in that category that could potentially benefit from them. Roughly one-third of milk produced in the U.S. comes from farms with fewer than 500 cows, and about a half from farms with fewer than 1,000 cows.

“Diverse income streams will always make a farm more resilient, which is going to be really important in a year like this,” when epic floods have devastated many Vermont farms.

Still, Lobdell argues, “As a general matter, we don’t need to be capturing methane from manure—we should just manage it differently and not have the pollution to begin with.” The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, for instance, recently featured information on the rise of dry manure management in California dairies. Ultimately, he also acknowledges, “Our concerns are pretty focused around the largest of these [digester] facilities.”

Goossen in contrast thinks that co-digesters could be beneficial, particularly for farms that are managing their manure anaerobically, or in a way that generates methane. “It’s better to capture it and burn it, climate wise,” he said. For farms that can manage their manure in a way that doesn’t generate methane, he’s less convinced and wants to see how the environmental benefits and impacts pencil out.

Nevertheless, “diverse income streams will always make a farm more resilient, which is going to be really important in a year like this,” he said, referring to epic flooding that devastated many Vermont farms.

Can Co-Digesters Scale Up?

As some of the first farmers to install a co-digester in New England, the Barstows raised much of the capital themselves. Today, Vanguard assumes the upfront building costs, and has since bought their system.

Vanguard therefore owns the co-digesters and pays farmers rent to operate them on their farms. The company profits from the sale of the biogas to the electric grid or to natural gas companies.

Farmers may not have to front the capital, but for a project to work, a grid operator must be able to profit from buying the biogas. In states with favorable renewable energy policies, such as net metering, or a renewable portfolio standard, the economics work better for co-digesters.

California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, however, acts as a bit of a disincentive for co-digesters because of the way it calculates the carbon intensity of manure versus food waste. Manure-only digesters receive better tax incentives.

States with food waste landfill bans also make co-digesters more affordable because the farms aren’t competing with landfills for the food waste.

But in states like Indiana, with low electricity prices and no food-to-landfill bans, co-digesters are economically out of reach for small dairies, said Mark Stoermann, chief operating officer for Newtrient, an independent service provider formed by dairy cooperatives.

A recent Cornell University study on the economic feasibility of co-digesters in New York, for example, pegged the price for an 1,800-cow farm at about $9 million and the annual benefits at $3.8 million. That estimate factors in a 30 percent tax credit (yet to go into effect) that the Inflation Reduction Act grants dairy farms installing anaerobic digesters.

Will Vanguard Stay Focused on Co-digesters?

Vanguard is the primary company focused on co-digestion, though other companies are emerging, Stoermann said. “They’ve really built a more holistic co-digestion model, working with smaller farms and all of the other feedstocks that might be in the area, in a way that other companies haven’t.”

Last year’s acquisition by BlackRock, the IRA tax credit, and growing interest in anaerobic digestion may be pulling Vanguard in other directions, however. Of the 130 systems the company is developing across 22 states, roughly half will be co-digesters, according to Hanselman. The remainder will be manure-only digesters on large dairies. Co-digesters don’t work on mega-dairies because they produce too much manure and don’t have the land base to spread the digestate.

Notably, BlackRock is the focus of accusations of greenwashing through investments in climate-friendly companies and projects, as well as revolving-door hiring practices with the oil and gas industries.

“[Dairy production] is a huge methane generator. If you continue to let it go, it’s going to impact our environment so negatively.”

Vanguard says that tackling food waste remains an integral part of its mission, but there are some situations where a methane-only digester is the best solution. “I fully understand people who are [concerned] this is helping very large ag,” said Hanselman, “but [dairy production] is a huge methane generator. If you continue to let it go, it’s going to impact our environment so negatively.”

Vanguard also operates some co-digesters that pump methane or “biogas” directly into gas pipelines and is starting to supply large companies like AstraZeneca with biogas to help them offset greenhouse gas emissions from other sources.

Lobdell calls those deals myopic. “We find that approach to be problematic and distracting from the need to, in an absolute sense, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in all sectors, he said. “The business model depends on long-term waste generation and continued reliance on climate-destroying methane gas.”

Meanwhile, back on Longview Farm, a Vanguard technician hunches over two computer monitors in a building near the digester, tracking everything inside the tank from atmospheric pressure to the chemistry composition of the digester’s contents. Technicians are on the farm every day, ensuring that the system runs optimally, balancing the input of food waste, and coordinating the deliveries that come in.

“There’s really not a lot of downsides” for farmers, said Barstow Manz. “The beauty of working with Vanguard . . . is that we don’t have to do all the chemistry and the maintenance and dealing with the food waste contracts. They handle that so we can focus on the day-to-day on the farm.”

“I think it’s a smart investment my family made,” she said. “It’s a thoughtful way to fit into our community. It’s not a haunted hayride or something fun and nice, but we’re really adding value to our community.”

The post These Manure Digesters Incorporate Food Scraps. Does That Make Them Better? appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> https://civileats.com/2023/08/28/these-manure-digesters-incorporate-food-scraps-does-that-make-them-better/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2022/10/31/year-round-farming-massachusetts-greenhouses-infrastructure-food-security-climate-resilience/ Mon, 31 Oct 2022 08:00:42 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=48989 The ability to cram urban permaculture farms into improbable spots and transform these forgotten spaces into vibrant, welcoming, community education and food distribution centers is the genius of Eastie Farm, which Civil Eats first covered in 2019. On an early fall day, the site buzzes with activity. A dozen or so residents with young children […]

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Eastie Farm’s new “zero emissions” greenhouse is tucked down a narrow alley, a block from the expressway, in a gritty East Boston corner. The gleaming structure rises amid gardens landscaped with native plants: milkweed, choke weed, huckleberry, mountain mint, paw paw saplings, and two large mulberry trees.

The ability to cram urban permaculture farms into improbable spots and transform these forgotten spaces into vibrant, welcoming, community education and food distribution centers is the genius of Eastie Farm, which Civil Eats first covered in 2019. On an early fall day, the site buzzes with activity. A dozen or so residents with young children line up for their community supported agriculture (CSA) shares while staff quickly sort through boxes of green beans, apples, pumpkins, and corn purchased from local farms. Inside the greenhouse, electricians complete the circuitry for the geothermal energy system that will pump heat, from 450 feet below the surface, to keep plants warm during cooler months.

Season extension—providing fresh, local, nutritious food throughout the winter months—is an overarching goal, as is adapting to a changing climate reality, which is rare for this type of program.  

Eastie Farm’s greenhouse will enable the urban farm, which manages three mini-farms and four school-based gardens in East Boston, to extend its growing season and provide a winter classroom for its environmental education program. It expands the organization’s ability to increase food security in the largely immigrant community, with a median household income below the rest of Boston and the furthest average distance to a grocery store.

It is one of 20 greenhouses built at Massachusetts farms over the past two years to increase the availability of locally produced food in underserved communities. A state-funded food security infrastructure grant program, launched at the height of the pandemic, helped pay for the greenhouses, along with 487 other infrastructure projects, ranging from food delivery trucks and freezers to farm equipment to a public housing authority’s vertical farming initiative. The $58 million program aims to make local, fresh food production more efficient and accessible and to mitigate future crises by better connecting local producers and harvesters to a resilient food system.

Ashley Randle, deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, says the program is a national model for “how to shore up infrastructure to build a more robust, resilient food system and local economy.” While it’s too early to measure the program’s impact, she says, “It truly has been transformational to our local food system in Massachusetts.”

Season extension—providing fresh, local, nutritious food throughout the winter months—is an overarching goal, Randle says, as is adapting to a changing climate reality, which is rare for this type of program.

“We’re hearing more and more,” she says, “especially after the last two years with the two weather extremes, that the crops that typically used to survive or thrive in the region may have shorter growing seasons now, or shorter time to harvest, and so farmers have to adapt to those changes.”

Zero Emissions Greenhouse

Climate resiliency is core to Eastie Farm’s mission, in part because it’s located in a neighborhood that’s vulnerable to flooding and sea level rise. When the urban farm got the idea to build the greenhouse, it resolved to power it entirely with renewable energy, said Kannan Thiruvengadam, Eastie Farm’s director. “We wanted to do something that’s good for the community, but without compromising what’s good for future generations.”

Commercial greenhouses rely on a heat source, such as propane gas, to keep crops warm in winter and grow seedlings in early spring in cooler climates. Greenhouses also use electricity to power large fans for air circulation and ventilation and grow lights during winter. Energy use varies by size, design, and location, but fuel costs are generally greenhouses’ third highest cost behind labor and plant materials.

Geothermal-powered greenhouses are more common in regions with hot springs, but they’re rare in the East, which only has “low temperature” geothermal resources—that is the earth’s constant heat of about 55 degrees Fahrenheit at a depth of 10 feet or more. Eastie Farm’s geothermal system will harness this heat year-round, keeping plants warm in winter and cooling the space in summer when temperatures outside can top 100 degrees. Providing that natural cooling will reduce the need to run fans in the summer.

An electrician works on the connection to the geothermal hydraulic system at Eastie Farm. Above is one layer of solar shades and the roof that opens. (Photo credit: Meg Wilcox)

Eastie will grow its own seedlings and greens like kale, arugula, and spinach in winter, Thiruvengadam says. It’ll also eventually grow subtropical and tropical fruits, such as Zapote and avocado, and tree saplings in response to community requests.

The environmental and community education programs being planned at the greenhouse are equally important, says Sebastian Tabares, manager of one of the urban farm’s sites. Tabares says he teaches East Boston elementary school children how to “come back in tune with earth” when they’re feeling stress. “I’ve seen the change that it has on kids.”

Built of glass, polycarbonate, and metal, the elegant 1,500-square-foot greenhouse was designed by Dutch company Gakon Netafim. Its energy and water management features include a roof that opens to let hot air out in the summer; two layers of shades for passive heat management, including blocking solar energy on hot days or retaining the sun’s heat on cold days; and gutters that run across the roof’s ridges to channel rain or snow into a 500-gallon, black rain barrel tank inside the greenhouse. The tank provides irrigation water and acts as a thermal mass, radiating solar heat absorbed during the day at nighttime.

Water overflow will be diverted into a mini-aquifer Eastie created by excavating and replacing impermeable clay underlying the site with a fill that allows water to percolate downward. “We won’t be sending water into the city’s storm drains,” Thiruvengadam says.

Winter grow lights and the geothermal pumps will be powered with 100 percent renewable energy through the city’s Community Choice program.

‘Climate Battery’ Greenhouse

Full Well Farm, a small vegetable and cut flower grower in the rural, Western Massachusetts town of Adams, also received a state grant to build a greenhouse to grow produce year-round, increase summer crop yields, and improve its own seedling propagation.

“We don’t really have a lot of fossil fuel input. We don’t have a tractor . . . so getting a greenhouse that we would be heating with propane throughout winter just felt not in line with what we are doing.”

Farm co-owner Laura Tupper-Palches plans to grow salad mix, bunching greens such as kale, and radishes and turnips in the metal and double-insulated poly-roofing greenhouse. The fresh vegetables will supplement the root vegetables in their winter CSA, which is available regardless of income in collaboration with local organizations. The farm also delivers to low-income residents and sells at the North Adams farmers’ market, which has a SNAP matching program.

“Customers are very excited to have fresh local stuff in the winter,” she said. “North Adams doesn’t have a ton of local shopping.”

Tupper-Palches also installed a simpler type of geothermal system in the greenhouse called a “climate battery.” It draws warm air from the soil about eight feet down, heating the greenhouse above freezing during the winter, trimming its propane use.

“We did it to reduce propane,” she said. “We don’t really have a lot of fossil fuel input. We don’t have a tractor . . . so getting a greenhouse that we would be heating with propane throughout winter just felt not in line with what we are doing.”

Full Well Farm’s climate-battery greenhouse. The black coiled structures along the sides are where the heat comes up from the ground. (Photo credit: Full Well Farm)

In the summer, fans push the hot air down into the soil, “recharging the battery,” or reservoir of warm air in the soil.

Full Well Farm owners Laura Tupper-Palches (left) and Meg Bantle (right). (Photo credit: Full Well Farm)

“It’s going to be a big learning curve,” said Tupper-Palches. “You turn the fans on when you want to force the hot air back up, so we control how quickly we draw down what has been stored. You can turn it off on nights that are really cold and use propane instead [to avoid using stored heat so quickly].”

Eventually, she’d like to install solar on her farm as its electricity source.

Building Climate Resilience

The state grants funded more than just greenhouse projects. Although The Food Project has operated a 10,000-square-foot greenhouse in Boston for the last 20 years, the group used a state grant to purchase farm equipment for its Reynold’s Farm in Wenham to improve soil health, protect crops from extreme weather, and expand food production and access.

Reynold’s Farm purchased an electric tractor, irrigation equipment, soil fertility amendments, and a farm truck for transporting fresh produce to neighboring communities. The purchases will expand the organization’s ability to provide fresh produce to food-insecure families. For example, it created a mobile market with the new truck, making numerous stops around downtown Lynn for people who do not live close to a grocery store.

Young farmers in the field at Reynold’s Farm in Wenham. The Food Project’s mission is to empower young people to grow and distribute fresh, healthy, affordable food to members of their communities. (Photo credit: The Food Project)

Farm manager tanamá varas says the soil fertility amendments and irrigation system are helping their team revive soil microorganisms and create an environment that will grow healthier plants with better yield results. The farm’s previous owner depleted the farm’s soils with tillage and overproduction.

Despite the summer’s extremely difficult growing season—marked by severe drought and unrelenting heat—the farm increased its production capacity and is still on track to grow its overall production 75 percent by 2025, they said. The farm grew enough produce to sustain its CSA shares and farmers markets while increasing its donations to hunger relief organizations.

The electric tractor will help the farm manage invasive weeds that pull water away from crops and block sunlight with their broad tall leaves, and also contribute to the organization’s long-term goal of building a sustainable farm system by reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned.

Spreading Innovation

Both Eastie and Full Well farms struggled to find other farms in New England powering their greenhouses with renewable energy. Tupper-Palches found one farm in New Hampshire with a climate battery system and a grower-engineer in Pennsylvania who designs the systems through Atmos Greenhouse Systems.

Thiruvengadam found a geothermal-powered greenhouse at a Pennsylvania university, and said he had to “crowdsource” the information on building the system in such a tight urban spot, piecing together information from different organizations in a process he likens to quilting.

Now both farms are deluged with calls from other growers or organizations who want to learn how to create a geothermal-powered greenhouse. “There’s definitely a lot of buzz about this kind of technology,” said Tupper-Palches, adding that a group of middle-school students recently visited the farm, some from as far away as California.

Many Massachusetts farms are looking at those technologies, Randle agreed. The grant program expects another $25 million round of funding, she added.

Boston-area farms are also taking note. “It’s a beautiful structure,” said Danielle Andrews, who manages The Food Project’s greenhouse in Boston, which relies on natural-gas during the winter months. “Kannan is a leader in climate resiliency in the city of Boston, so to see them bringing this technology online, and being able to learn from it, is really exciting.”

This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Sebastian Tabares’ name and tanamá varas’ pronouns.

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]]> https://civileats.com/2022/06/27/to-cut-ocean-plastic-pollution-aquaculture-turns-to-renewable-gear/ Mon, 27 Jun 2022 08:00:14 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=47380 Adams is harvesting today with her business partner Eric Oransky, who works fast, pulling up oyster bags and tossing them onto the deck. Dumping the contents onto a processing table, they count the oysters in groups of 10, occasionally knocking two together to make sure they’re alive. Then, Oransky sends each group of 10 through […]

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Erin Adams steers a refurbished lobster boat down Harraseeket River toward Casco Bay in southern Maine. As she passes the tiny Pound of Tea Island, where sea gulls lounge and a lone red Adirondack chair sits invitingly at the water’s edge, her destination looms in the distance: a 10-acre oyster farm. It’s a windy day and the boat pitches and rolls as Adams slows near a line of floating black oyster cages undulating in the swells.

Adams is harvesting today with her business partner Eric Oransky, who works fast, pulling up oyster bags and tossing them onto the deck. Dumping the contents onto a processing table, they count the oysters in groups of 10, occasionally knocking two together to make sure they’re alive. Then, Oransky sends each group of 10 through a chute and Adams catches them in mesh bags. Voila! They’re ready for delivery fresh off the boat.

These mesh bags aren’t made from ordinary polypropylene mesh, however. They’re woven out of string made with 100-percent European beechwood, which is sustainably harvested by thinning forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. They’re the only plastic-free, biodegradable, home-compostable oyster “harvest” bags on the market.

Maine Ocean Farms uses roughly 1,200 of these bags every season. The bagging material is sold by Ocean Farms Supply, a business launched last year by Maine Ocean Farms and helmed by Adams. And although the company sells the material to oyster, clam, and mussel growers and wholesale distributors as far away as Mexico, California, and Florida, most of its business is local.

Already, the company’s bags have replaced the use of 14 linear miles of polypropylene mesh, according to Adams, who adds: “We are just beginning.”

Demand for non-plastic aquaculture gear is growing, as evidenced by the hundred or so seafood farmers who packed into a session at the Northeast Aquaculture Conference in April to hear Adams and others speak on the topic.

Aquaculture both contributes to and is potentially harmed by the ocean plastics crisis. Much of the industry’s gear, from ropes to cages to flotation devices, are made of plastic. Over time, that plastic degrades, generating millimeter-sized particles that can be ingested by shellfish and finfish, potentially harming their health. While harvest bags are a small part of the plastics used on a typical oyster farm—and in aquaculture more broadly—replacing them with a non-plastic biodegradable material is a step in the right direction.

They’re just one in a growing number of emerging innovations that mariculturists—small-scale shellfish and kelp growers—are developing to reduce their contribution to the ocean plastics crisis. Other new products include kelp-based ropes and lobster bait bags, oyster cages made solely from wood and metal, and cotton and hemp-based systems for growing shellfish larvae. While innovators are still grappling with longevity, durability, and the cost-competitiveness of new materials, the trend shows some promise.

“If you can create a biodegradable material, or something that’s more benign [for farming shellfish], then you’re improving the health of your product, the quality of your product, and the environment at the same time. It’s a win-win-win,” said Joel Baziuk, associate director, Global Ghost Gear Initiative, at the Ocean Conservancy.

Ocean Plastics and Aquaculture

Every year, 11 million metric tons of plastic enters the oceans, which are already clogged with an estimated 15 to 50 trillion pieces of plastic that never fully break down, but instead fragment into smaller and smaller pieces. Roughly 80 percent of that plastic comes from land-based sources, including wastewater, according to Britta Baechler, senior manager of ocean plastics research at the Ocean Conservancy.

Aquaculture contributes to ocean plastic pollution in three main ways, Baziuk told Civil Eats. Gear is lost from open water cages, wave action and extreme weather abrade plastic ropes, nets, and flotation systems, and single-use plastics used during routine operations can enter the ocean, particularly in regions with poor waste management systems.

“We know that [aquaculture] is a major vector, we just don’t know exactly how much, because there’s not enough research,” said Baziuk.

Some 1,300 marine animal species have been found to ingest ocean plastics, said Baechler. Bivalves filter enormous volumes of water to feed, which means that microplastics can get trapped in their gills or guts and cause blockages. Studies show that microplastics can decrease the ability of clams, oysters, and mussels to create energy; they can hinder muscle function and impair reproduction and growth. Hormone-disrupting chemicals like bisphenols and phthalates, which leach from microplastics, can also change marine animals’ behavior or affect their ability to grow, reproduce, and feed effectively.

Little is known about the impacts to humans who consume shellfish contaminated with microfiber, and more research is needed. But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t consume shellfish, Baechler says. “It’s not a great thing for human health that we’re consuming microplastics, but it’s not a problem that’s specific to shellfish or seafood. It’s across the human food system.”

Pandemic-Inspired Innovation

Energetic and intense, Oransky grew up in Freeport, Maine, and spent summers sailing in Casco Bay. His passion for the water led him to cofound Maine Ocean Farms in 2017, after working as a woodworker.

Like many in Maine’s mariculturist community, Oransky is young, innovative, and environmentally minded. “Those are the people who are driving the interest in reducing plastics and coming up with non-fossil fuel-based technologies,” Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association, told Civil Eats.

Oransky searched far and wide for an alternative to plastic bags already on the market, testing bioplastics made from corn, soy, and other materials before turning to the beechwood bags made by an Austrian company, Packnatur. Then it took months of trials to perfect the bag for shellfish, because Packnatur’s original bags were designed for fruit and vegetables, not heavy, sharp objects like oysters.

When the pandemic hit and oyster sales tanked, Oransky decided to pivot and make the bag project about “more than just us.” He tapped Adams to lead the effort and Ocean Farms Supply.

“People told us they’d been looking for 15 years,” for a non-plastic packaging material, Oransky said. “It’s amazing that a few mariners, woodworkers, and shipbuilders figured it out.”

The bag material is manufactured in Austria because it’s cheaper to produce there, but Adams has begun conversations with the University of Maine to explore producing them locally. “It just depends on getting that [tree] species that would be suitable for growth here,” she said. The tree also couldn’t compete with what’s used by the timber and pulp industry.

For now, Adams said they’re focused on building the market. “Let’s get the product in use, let’s drop this plastic waste stream, and then take the next step and keep an eye on the future.”

Replacing Plastic Grow-Out Cages

Im addition to the Harvest bags, Maine Ocean Farm also uses black floating bags made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) to grow its oysters. HDPE bags are widely used because they’re cheap, but even the metal cages used by some oyster growers to anchor to the bottom of tidal areas are coated with PVC plastic and contain plastic components.

The cages may also be a source of microplastics ingested by the shellfish growing inside them. There’s scant research on the issue, but one study found that exposure to microplastics from the aquaculture grow-out materials induced lower settlement success for oyster larvae and delays in growth.

Abby Barrows, an ocean plastics researcher and oyster farmer, is on a mission to replace this plastic. She’s developing experimental oyster bags made of cork and cedar trees, with fine stainless-steel or aluminum mesh on their tops and bottom. She’s also developing ropes made from Manila hemp.

“Oysters are touted as the most sustainable fishery, which I do believe [to be true], but we need to look at how we’re cultivating oysters and how we can further make it a sustainable system,” she told Civil Eats.

This summer, Barrows is running side-by-side experiments at a few farms, including her own, Long Cove Sea Farm, to compare how well baby oysters develop in wood and metal cages versus plastic ones. She’s collaborating with scientists in Nova Scotia, who will measure the microplastic content in the oysters.

“Ironically, we’re going full circle back to some of the gear that we first originally used,” Belle said. “Thirty-five to 40 years ago, our oyster growers were using bags made of wood and wire mesh.”

Developing an Alternative Sustainable Supply Chain

One of the challenges in eliminating plastics from aquaculture is that they “hold up very well in a marine environment,” said Belle. “They’re not subject to corrosion, and they can be quite strong, particularly in the winter. It’s always a balancing act between developing things that have a long enough lifespan and are economical to use.”

Getting that balance between longevity and biodegradability right for a non-plastic material is one reason why most efforts, other than Barrows’, focus on replacing single use plastics like harvest or bait bags. It’s easier to develop a truly biodegradable product that doesn’t need to be used for a long time.

For example, Katie Weiler, whose startup Viable Gear makes kelp-based aquaculture gear, wanted to tackle the mussel socks used to grow baby mussels before they’re big enough to attach to a line, but the product needed to last more than year. She decided instead to prototype kelp-based seeding twine to replace the nylon that kelp growers currently use. The twine needs to last five months to give the kelp plants enough time to establish on long lines in the ocean, said Weiler.

Weiler is also working on bait bags for the lobster and crab industries and is interested in kelp-based cling wrap to replace the plastic used to wrap boats in the winter. For now, her startup is targeting plastic items used in aquaculture that are easier to replace, she told Civil Eats. “Eventually, if we could come up with something more durable that doesn’t shed toxic microplastics in shellfish, that would be lovely.”

Cost is another big concern. Ocean Farm Supply’s bags cost 20 cents more per bag but they “communicate to customers that the oyster farmer cares about sustainability,” Oransky said. “Ten years ago, it would have been a hard sell,” he adds, but today, customer demands are shifting.

It’s too early for Barrows to know how much her wood and metal cages will cost, but she’s hoping to make them cost-competitive, partially through longevity. They’ll be designed to last 20 to 30 years, longer than their plastic counterparts, so they’ll be “an asset for your farm,” she said.

These efforts are just the beginning of solving aquaculture’s contribution to the plastic crisis. “Every step in the right direction is a step worth taking,” Baziuk said, “even if it’s not going to solve the problem overnight.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2021/08/12/salmon-is-life-for-native-alaskans-salmon-declines-pose-existential-crisis/ https://civileats.com/2021/08/12/salmon-is-life-for-native-alaskans-salmon-declines-pose-existential-crisis/#comments Thu, 12 Aug 2021 08:00:03 +0000 http://civileats.com/?p=42909 This year, however, abysmally low salmon runs in the Yukon River have led Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) to impose a moratorium on fishing for Chinook (or King) and Chum salmon in the mighty river, which runs for 2,000 miles from the Bering Sea to Canada’s Yukon Territory. While Yukon run sizes for […]

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In St. Mary’s, Alaska, the people of the Yupiit of Andreafski look to the south wind, the budding tree leaves, and even the formations of migrating birds to discern whether the pulse of salmon returning upriver to spawn will be strong. Serena Fitka grew up in this tiny Yukon River village, and though she now lives in Valdez, she returns home every summer with her family, to partake in the traditional salmon harvest that is both the community’s main source of sustenance and the fabric of its culture.

This year, however, abysmally low salmon runs in the Yukon River have led Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) to impose a moratorium on fishing for Chinook (or King) and Chum salmon in the mighty river, which runs for 2,000 miles from the Bering Sea to Canada’s Yukon Territory. While Yukon run sizes for both salmon species numbered about 1.9 million in the past, this year they’re projected to be less than 430,000. The moratorium impacts 40 villages and roughly 11,000 people, 90 percent of whom are Indigenous Alaskans. And many have no access to grocery stores or any other source of food besides what they can hunt or harvest.

On a recent trip to St. Mary’s, Fitka said she felt depressed. “I walk on to the riverbank, and I look at the river and . . . I want to go get fish, but I can’t. And that’s how everyone was feeling this year. People came to me and said, ‘I don’t know what to do.’” Fitka is executive director of the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association, which represents the interests of Indigenous subsistence fishermen on the Yukon River.

Serena Fitka

Chinook salmon, the largest and fattiest of Alaska’s five salmon species and the mainstay of these communities, has been declining for decades, and for the second year in a row, Indigenous fishing communities have faced a complete fishing moratorium. Now the Chum salmon, the tribes second-most-important species, which come upriver to spawn later in the summer and fall, have declined as well, catching everyone by surprise and leading to feelings of anger, frustration, and depression among tribal members.

“We have discerned a deeper sense of pain than we have ever seen before. The people are scared to totally different levels,” Ben Stevens, Tanana Chiefs Conference tribal resources manager, told Civil Eats. “In the past when numbers were low . . . it would be okay because we always had the Chum salmon to dry and to put in the freezers,” Stevens continued. “But this year is unprecedented. We’re not able to fish anything except maybe the white fish or the pike,” which he adds are less plentiful and don’t provide equivalent nutrition to salmon.

Salmon populations are also crashing in the Chignik River, on Alaska’s Peninsula, just north of the Aleutian Islands. Fishermen there, who are also largely Native Alaskans, face a similar moratorium on salmon fishing. But Alaskan salmon populations are not declining everywhere. Bristol Bay, in fact, is experiencing another banner year for Sockeye salmon, with the ADFG’s 2021 forecast predicting that 2021 harvests for both Sockeye and pink salmon, estimated at 170 million fish, will be “substantially larger” than the 2020 harvests.

“There’s a paradox,” said Peter Westley, an associate professor in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Overall, in the ocean right now there’s more salmon than there has been in at least 100 years, but the species that are in the ocean are often the ones that are not of local importance.” In other words, the Chinook and Chum salmon that the Yukon River communities rely on are in decline, while other species in other regions are thriving, but scientists don’t fully understand why.

Overall, salmon appear to be moving further north into colder waters, as rising temperatures warm the oceans, said Westley, but that doesn’t explain the whole story. Regardless, Native Alaskans are disparately impacted by the changes to the salmon populations, and with salmon at the center of their culture, they face a potentially existential crisis.

Why Are Some Salmon Declining?

Alaskan salmon make their home in the Northern Pacific Ocean, a complex ecosystem shared with Russia and Asia, and with other fisheries. The five wild Alaskan species mingle and compete in the ocean with hundreds of millions of hatchery-raised salmon produced globally. Certain species spend their time in different regions of the ocean (such as the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska), but warming waters are changing their movements. They also spawn in a multitude of rivers. All this makes it hard for scientists to tease out why a particular species is failing in one area.

Sockeye salmon congregating at a stream mouth. (Photo credit: Jonny Armstrong)

Climate change is a major factor, said Westley, whose research has linked rising ocean temperatures to smaller fish size and a decline in the age of returning salmon. Both point to “clear evidence that there’s competition for limited food in the ocean.” But the data are confounding, he says, and climate change doesn’t explain all of the population changes they’re seeing. Chinook and Chum salmon, for example, may also be getting out-competed by other salmon species, including hatchery-raised salmon produced in Asia and Russia.

Scientists are clear, however, that whatever is causing the Chinook, and possibly the Chum, to die is happening early in life, during their first years in the Bering Sea. Salmon hatch upriver and spend two years there before swimming out to the ocean, where they spend another three to four years before returning to the same river to spawn. Surveys conducted by ADFG in partnership with NOAA over the past 20 years have found fewer juveniles in the oceans, which means that fewer fish are reaching adult size and returning upriver to reproduce.

“Even when we get one juvenile cohort that’s better, it’s usually just one and then we drop back to low abundance again the following year. Or we get a period of a couple of low abundance juveniles,” said Katie Howard, a fisheries scientist for the ADFG.

Howard points to recent, rapid habitat changes, all linked to climate change, that are likely impacting the young salmon. “We see big changes in river temperatures, drought, permafrost melting,” she said. “We’re seeing changes to the timing of when we typically see our ocean blooms, which starts off this cascade of the food web every year. And we see changes in the distribution of different species in the Bering Sea with warmer temperatures.”

But Westley thinks that other factors, including fisheries management, cannot be ruled out. “We are sometimes too quick to point to things less under our control, like things in the ocean, when things are going bad, and we tend to applaud ourselves when things are going well,” he said.

Indigenous leaders question the impact of the Bering Sea’s pollock industry, which harvests the fish with a trawl net pulled behind the fishing vessel, and inadvertently scoops up salmon as bycatch. Howard agrees that some Yukon Chinook are caught up as bycatch in that fishery, but she says, “It’s just not what’s driving the low run abundance.”

Bycatch reports are complicated to interpret because hatchery fish also get caught up by trawlers, but Howard estimates that about 17 percent of Chum bycatch “would have been attributed to Western Alaskan rivers including the Yukon,” in recent years. The pollock industry may not be the driving force behind the plummeting populations, but its impact cannot be dismissed.

‘Once You Pull That Main Stem Out, Nothing Stays Together’

Stevens is a member of the Dinyeet Hut’aana tribe who grew up in a sharing culture in a tiny village with fewer than 100 residents deep in the interior of Alaska. His place on the river and fish camp feed five to seven families. “We all join together to make this thing [salmon harvest] happen,” he said.

Salmon accounts for about 75 to 80 percent of Yukon River tribal diets, Stevens estimates. “Even more so, it goes beyond our tummy—into our souls, our culture. It’s not just sustenance. Salmon equals life,” he said.

“When we put a fish net in, and we go and check it,” he continues, “we’re having our kids help us. They’re feeling the joy and the pain along with us. It’s helping to solidify that social fabric of our families and our communities.”

When someone does catch their first salmon, it’s usually divided up, either within the family or within the community, to be passed off to elders first to make sure that they get a taste of the fish, said Fitka. Giving thanks is another important tradition that Fitka said she’s strayed from herself but is working to instill in her daughters.

A Native Alaskan child stands at a salmon drying rack in 2006 in the Bristol Bay area. (Photo credit: Mark Emery)

Cutting and preserving salmon by smoking and drying it are especially central to the culture. Fitka recalls the first time she taught her oldest daughter, Hali, how to cut half-dried salmon, known as egamaarrluk in her tribal language. She reveled in her then-seven-year-old daughter’s pure enjoyment of the fish after the job was done, and they ate it dipped in seal oil with potatoes, cabbage, and carrots.

“I was that proud mother,” Fitka said. “My Indigenous soul was screaming, ‘Yeah!’ Now, she says that pride is complicated by a fear that her daughter may not be able to pass on the knowledge to her children. “I thought this thing wouldn’t come this soon. It’s disheartening,” She added.

Stevens worries about the future when he recalls 2012, the last time the Chinook population crashed and the tribes self-imposed a total moratorium on fishing. “We all beached our boats, hung up our fish nets, and just kind of went home. But the social ills that resulted from that were devastating. Domestic violence, drug abuse, and substance abuse—everything just skyrocketed.”

“Our jobs as Alaskan Native men is to help feed the people and protect the weak,” he continued. “If we’re not doing that, then we’re sitting on the couch, kind of in disarray. It’s a woven fabric—once you pull that main stem out, nothing stays together.”

Short- and Long-Term Solutions

The ADFG opened fishing for other salmon species, including pink and Coho, to communities on the lower and middle Yukon River, closer to the Bering Sea, said Deena Jallen, Yukon summer season manager at ADFG. Native fishermen must use different nets to harvest the smaller fish and agree to release any Chinook or Chum salmon they might catch incidentally. While the less-tasty, less-oily pink and Coho salmon aren’t a usual staple of Native Alaskan diets, Jallen said, “people are desperate, and they need something going into the winter.”

Communities on the upper Yukon, which account for about 30 percent of the river communities, have fewer alternatives. They only see Chinook and Chum in their part of the river and have access to limited freshwater species, said Jallen. They also have fewer moose in their area, another key food source.

Last year, donations of Bristol Bay sockeye salmon, funded by the nonprofit Catch Together, helped stave off hunger for the Yukon and Chignik river communities. But the funds have depleted, according to Linda Behnken, a commercial fisherman and executive director of the Alaska Longline Commercial Fishermen’s Association. And in response to families’ requests for more help, the groups that organized those donations are once again seeking funds to help the river communities. Some Bristol Bay food processers have already stepped up and begun purchasing sockeye for the Yukon River communities.

Linda Behnken holding a halibut.

Behnken also submitted a proposal to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for funds to study the feasibility of building a regional distribution system for moving Bristol Bay salmon inland to communities in need on a more sustained basis. Behnken and others want to keep building on the partnerships and infrastructure that quickly came together in 2020 to assist Alaskans in need. An ad-hoc network of small-boat fishermen, processors, transporters, Tribal groups and charitable food organizations is now in place, that with a consistent revenue stream could become a more robust channel for distributing plentiful Bristol Bay salmon to communities in need.

“What we were able to do last year, that supported [commercial] fishermen at a time when prices were too low, but more importantly met needs around the state, really highlighted for us how important it was for Alaskans to be prepared to help other Alaskans, especially as climate change starts to have these strange distributional, abundance impacts.”

Still Behnken says that “the real solutions are to address climate change, address the bycatch of salmon in the trawl fisheries, and . . . prioritize the fish and the people who depend on those fish in the [river] communities.”

Fitka thinks that reliance on fish donations is “crazy” when Native Alaskans should be out on the river. Stevens is thankful for the donations, but stresses, “We are by no means asking for handouts, because we want to be able to do this stuff ourselves. But when we got snow looking at us, and we don’t have a store, we don’t have jobs . . . if this is an option for us to get some protein out to those remote areas, we’re going to consider it and we will be thankful.”

At the same time, Stevens acknowledges that it’s not a long-term solution. On a broader scale, he wants regional resource managers to start integrating Indigenous science. “The folks in the villages have ideas on how to sustain life,” he says, though he acknowledges that generational wisdom about the natural world, such as “how the mice interact with the clouds via the wolf and lynx,” is hard to fit into the “Western scientific square.”

Stevens would also like to see greater Native representation on the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, which sets fishery policy for Alaska, Oregon, and Washington. Tribal members are on the local councils for subsistence fisheries but are poorly represented at higher levels in the state.

“We truly believe and assert that we should be able to go outside our villages and drop a net, solidifying that social fabric that sustains us, instead of going to the industrial complex over the mountains and accepting donations, or maybe even buying it from them,” he said. “We should be able to live our lives.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2021/08/12/salmon-is-life-for-native-alaskans-salmon-declines-pose-existential-crisis/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2021/06/04/how-pesticides-are-harming-soil-ecosystems/ Fri, 04 Jun 2021 08:00:24 +0000 http://civileats.com/?p=41937 With conventionally farmed land, “anything synthetic is hurting the natural ecosystem of the soil,” said Ward, whose acreage is now largely certified organic. “As you transition away from that, the life comes back.” By life, Ward means the rich diversity of insects and other soil invertebrates—earthworms, roundworms, beetles, ants, springtails, and ground-nesting bees—as well as […]

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The first year after Jason Ward began transitioning his newly purchased conventional farm to organic production, he started seeing more earthworms in the soil beneath his corn, soybeans, and wheat fields. By the third year, he had spotted numerous nightcrawlers—big worms reaching up to eight inches long—on his 700-acre farm in Green County, Ohio.

With conventionally farmed land, “anything synthetic is hurting the natural ecosystem of the soil,” said Ward, whose acreage is now largely certified organic. “As you transition away from that, the life comes back.”

By life, Ward means the rich diversity of insects and other soil invertebrates—earthworms, roundworms, beetles, ants, springtails, and ground-nesting bees—as well as soil bacteria and fungi. Rarely do conversations about the negative impacts of pesticide use in agriculture include these soil invertebrates, yet they play a vital role in soil and plant health and sequestering carbon. Worms eat fallen plant matter, excrete carbon-rich casts and feces, cycle nutrients to plants, and create tunnels that help the soil retain water. Beetles and other soil insects feed on the seeds of weeds, or prey on crop pests such as aphids.

But those critical functions are jeopardized by more than a billion pounds of pesticides used in the U.S. every year, according to a new peer-reviewed study. Compiling data from nearly 400 laboratory and field studies, researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and the University of Maryland found that pesticides harmed beneficial soil invertebrates in 70.5 percent of cases reviewed . Studies conducted in the field alone, however, resulted in fewer significant negative impacts (about 50 percent of cases reviewed).

“What this study really drives home is that pesticide use is incompatible with healthy ecosystems, across organisms, pesticide classes, and a whole set of different health outcomes, including death,” said Kendra Klein, senior scientist at Friends of the Earth and co-author of the study. “We have to be talking about pesticide reduction in conversations about regenerative agriculture.”

Herbicide use has risen steadily in the U.S. in past decades, particularly on genetically modified crops. Recent USDA surveys show 98 percent of soybean acres and 97 percent of corn acres are sprayed with herbicides with known health and environmental impacts, including glyphosate (Roundup), atrazine, and dicamba. Neonicotinoid insecticide use has also risen in recent decades as a seed treatment for field crops, even though pesticides in this class are implicated in colony collapse disorder in bees and potential endocrine disruption in humans. The U.S. lags behind the world’s largest agricultural producers, including Europe, China, and Brazil, in banning harmful pesticides, according to a 2016 study that found that more than a quarter of all agricultural pesticides used in the U.S. are banned in Europe.

The researchers reviewed studies covering 275 unique species and 284 different pesticides or combinations of pesticides available in the U.S. Insecticides, unsurprisingly, produced the largest negative impact on soil invertebrates (75 percent of cases), followed by fungicides (71 percent), herbicides (63 percent), and bactericides (58 percent). The pesticides either directly killed the organisms studied or significantly harmed them by impairing their growth, for example, or decreasing their abundance and diversity. The earliest signs of pesticide impact (e.g., structural changes and biochemical biomarkers of harm) were observed most frequently in soil organisms, followed by reproductive harms, mortality, and impacts on behavior, growth, richness and diversity, abundance, and biomass.

The findings add further evidence to the role that pesticides may be playing in biodiversity decline and the “insect apocalypse,” and they raise critical questions about the ability of soil to capture and store carbon if pesticides are killing or harming the very organisms that perform those vital functions.

Ecotoxicologist Ralf Schulz, a professor at the University of Koblenz-Landau, wasn’t surprised by the results but urged caution in their interpretation. Field-based studies, which account for one-third of the cases reviewed, showed fewer significant negative effects. One possible reason: Lab studies often use higher pesticide concentrations, while uncontrolled environmental variables could provide some buffering capacity for pesticide effects in the field. It’s important to evaluate whether lab studies tested pesticide concentrations at levels that would be found in the field, Schulz said, but the researchers noted that was beyond the scope of their paper. Schulz’s own research has found that pesticide toxicity has more than doubled for many invertebrates since 2005.

“It’s a very important study, but it’s not so easy to interpret the 70 percent negative effects directly,” Schulz said. One shouldn’t assume that means ‘in 70 percent of soils we have problems,’” he added, “because that could be wrong.”

However, Richard Smith, an agricultural ecologist and associate professor of natural resources and the environment at the University of New Hampshire, said that—on the contrary—the findings could be “somewhat conservative.”

“It paints a really good picture of the general negative effects of pesticides on soil invertebrates,” he said, “but it doesn’t necessarily tell us the degree of [harm].”

Soil Invertebrates ‘Routinely Ignored’

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) risk assessment process for approving pesticides requires manufacturers to test for potential harmful effects on aquatic insects and the European honeybee, which is used as a surrogate for other terrestrial invertebrates, but not soil-dwelling organisms, said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

But the honeybee “is not adequately representative of a lot of really important insects and arthropods,” Donley told Civil Eats. “EPA thinks that terrestrial invertebrates fall in one of two categories—pollinators and bird food—but they do so much more than that. This is such an important group of animals that is being routinely ignored.”

The study results underscore the need to include soil organisms in any risk analysis of a pesticide that could contaminate soil, both Donley and Klein said. The risk assessment should also take into account the important functions these organisms provide, such as decomposing dead plants and animals, regulating pests and diseases, and sequestering carbon in the soil.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth filed a legal petition, supported by 67 public health, environmental justice and other organizations, urging the EPA to include a robust assessment of the harms to six classes of soil organisms, beyond the European honeybee.

Bringing Pesticide Reduction into Regenerative Agriculture

Some of Smith’s published research has focused on the impact of seeds coated with insecticides and fungicides on weeds and below ground invertebrate communities. He found that much of the chemicals end up in the soil and aren’t taken up by the crops.

“We’re also finding that it travels quite a bit in the soil, and it resides in the soil for longer than folks suspected . . . As we’re looking at the data coming from these studies, [it shows] that even a small amount is having an impact on the soil communities.”

Klein says the researchers’ major motivation for conducting the invertebrates study was to call attention to the need to include pesticide reduction in the discussion about regenerative agriculture practices, such as no tillage and cover crop use, which have become popular in many food and agriculture circles for their soil health and climate benefits, but often include the use of herbicides.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under Biden is preparing to reward farmers who take up regenerative practices through a public carbon market and other incentives. Private companies such as Indigo Ag are also developing private carbon markets, while a number of “Big Food” players—ranging from General Mills to McDonald’s and Danone—are ramping up plans to incentivize regenerative practices in their supply chains. It worries Klein that pesticides aren’t a larger part of these conversations.

“So often the role of pesticides in harming soil health is left out,” Klein said. “That leaves the growing field of regenerative agriculture open to co-optation by pesticide companies. We’re seeing some of the worst actors trying to ride the momentum of soil carbon sequestration to identify new markets to sell their products,” she said, pointing to Syngenta, Croplife, and Bayer.

The practice of planting cover crops such as cereal rye and legumes is increasingly encouraged by soil health experts as a vital practice for sequestering carbon, retaining water, and increasing farm resiliency to climate change. On conventional farms, however, cover crops are often used in conjunction with reduced tillage, meaning that they’re getting “burned off” or killed with Round Up and other herbicides rather than being tilled into the soil.

Some farmers, like Ward in Ohio, however, use mechanical means, or a “roller crimper” to kill off cover crops like cereal rye, and they plant their soybeans or other cash crop into the residue of the rye. Mowing or roto-tilling the cover crop (but not the soil) are other means organic farmers use for mechanically removing cover crops, according to Rodale Institute Midwest Organic Consultant Léa Vereecke.

Klein points to research showing that organic farms sequester more carbon than conventional farms, but there is also evidence that organic farming practices can run counter to sequestering carbon in soil, because it tends to require a lot of tillage.

For example, Ward, told Civil Eats that in some fields he is constantly tilling the soil to manage weeds. Three days after he plants, he’s in the field running a rotary hoe, and then he’s back three days later. “That’s one of the biggest downfalls—the fact that you do have to keep working that soil over and over and over again to get good weed protection,” said Ward.

Some organic farmers are working to dramatically reduce their tillage,  but Vereecke doesn’t think “there is such thing as a 10-year-long rotation that doesn’t involve any tillage and is 100 percent organic.” Still, she points to research showing that if tillage is done wisely, optimal soil health and some carbon storage is obtainable. “Science is now showing us that herbicide use is more harmful than tillage,” she added.

There are no easy answers, Smith said. “There are tradeoffs in every aspect of agriculture, and I’m not sure that we have really figured that balance” between pesticide reduction and carbon sequestration. “But we’re working toward it.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2021/03/08/the-people-behind-school-meals-are-pushing-for-free-access-for-all/ https://civileats.com/2021/03/08/the-people-behind-school-meals-are-pushing-for-free-access-for-all/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2021 09:00:51 +0000 http://civileats.com/?p=40699 Like most other districts around the country, Gasper has been providing free school meals to students during the pandemic, paid for by federal waivers granted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and he wants to keep it that way. Today, he is joining with 750 members of the School Nutrition Association (SNA) to call […]

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Some children have just returned part-time to the school where Michael Gasper works, and he is busy. Gasper is the district’s supervisor of nutrition services in Holmen, Wisconsin, a small community just north of La Crosse, with six schools and 3,800 students. His team is coordinating both in-school meals and meal delivery for students in remote learning, while also running a vibrant farm to school program. And on this mid-February day, Gasper is preparing his newly remodeled kitchen for the delivery of 40 boxes of locally produced hamburger and Italian sausage.

Like most other districts around the country, Gasper has been providing free school meals to students during the pandemic, paid for by federal waivers granted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and he wants to keep it that way. Today, he is joining with 750 members of the School Nutrition Association (SNA) to call on Congress to expand the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs and provide universal, free school meals all around the U.S.

“Lunch really needs to be part of the school day. It really is part of their education,” says Gasper, noting that most industrialized countries in the world provide lunch free to all students.

SNA, which represents more than 50,000 school nutrition administrators nationwide, cited the policy as the top priority in its 2021 Position Paper, arguing that free meals would support learning and improve attendance and classroom behavior while eliminating the burden of unpaid meal debt on families and school district budgets, and the costly, time-consuming meal application and verification process.

SNA’s support is a shot in the arm for a movement that has been building for decades. And the group isn’t the only major player to step forward. The American Academy of Pediatrics and American Heart Association joined with 62 other organizations in a December 2020 letter, organized by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), urging the Biden Administration to work with Congress to establish universal school meals. Alice Water’s nonprofit, the Edible Schoolyard Project, has been pushing for the idea in California and beyond. Meanwhile, California State Senator Nancy Skinner introduced a bill in February mandating free meals for all public students in the state.

“Frankly, it’s an idea whose time has come,” Diane Pratt-Heavner, SNA’s director of media relations, told Civil Eats.

In 2019, as part of a roundtable on School Food Policy hosted by Civil Eats, Bettina Elias Siegel, a school food policy advocate and author of Kid Food, lamented the fact that the notion of universal or free school meals was “pie in the sky” because of the political climate at the time. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything. Siegel says she’s really pleased to see SNA making universal school meals a priority, noting the group carries a lot of weight on Capitol Hill.”

The pandemic has exposed and even widened the fault lines in the school lunch program, as districts have scrambled to find creative ways to equitably feed ever more hungry children while keeping their budgets in the black. The USDA waivers, which reimburse school districts for every meal through the 2020–2021 school year, have provided a lifeline to school districts and families, and primed the pump for a longer-term solution. Advocates also see opportunity with the change in administration in Washington.

Universal school meals are now seemingly within reach as a solution to child hunger and many long-standing problems with the lunch program, including its meager reimbursement rates, its narrow window of eligibility, and its failure to prevent lunch shaming. But are universal free meals the panacea that advocates are searching for? And what will it take to make them a reality?

“We want to build on what’s going on right now, and we think it’s important for the incoming administration to focus on making sure that school breakfast and lunch are reaching the kids in need,” said Crystal FitzSimons, director of school and out-of-school time programs at FRAC.

Community Eligibility Provision: First Inroads into Universal Meals

Free school meals have long been seen as a way to ensure nutrition security in children, rectify racial inequities, and improve learning outcomes.

The movement made major inroads in 2010, when former First Lady Michelle Obama took on the issue of child hunger and nutrition. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010—which she championed—authorized funding for innovative approaches, like the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), in the school lunch and breakfast programs.

CEP allows schools to offer free meals to all students without collection of the meal applications normally required for free and reduced-priced meals. To qualify, at least 40 percent of students had to be eligible for free meals, based on their participation in other means-tested programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Nearly 31,000 schools across the country participated in CEP during the 2019-2020 academic year, serving 15 million children, or 28 percent of the 52 million children enrolled in schools participating in the national school breakfast and lunch programs, according to a USDA spokesperson. Most of those children are enrolled in public schools, though a small percentage of the 97,000 schools that operate both the breakfast and lunch programs are charter or nonprofit private schools.

The program provides a window into the potential benefits that could accrue from a universal meal policy. Take for example, the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District in Orange County, California, a moderate-sized district with 33 schools and 25,000 students. Nine of its schools participate in CEP.

Suzanne Morales, director of nutrition services for the Placentia-Yorba Linda district, told Civil Eats, “The best thing about CEP is it really removes the stigma of being in the cafeteria. You don’t have to worry about your peers and looking different.” She also notes that the guaranteed reimbursements from USDA have helped the district financially by eliminating unpaid meal balances in the nine schools.

Unlike other school district budget items, school meal programs are run as separate businesses, and they depend on federal reimbursements for every meal they serve. What’s more, the amount they receive is fixed, at about $3.50 per lunch, and must cover staff and overhead expenses as well as the food. When families cannot pay, school districts are left with unpaid balances, which can lead to lunch shaming, lunch debt, and children going hungry.

Morales noted that, before the pandemic, absenteeism has gone down in CEP schools in her district. Studies have also shown improved nutritional outcomes, including reduced obesity in low-income children in CEP schools, as well as improved academic performance.

Finally, CEP helps reach children in families who are on the cusp, but not quite eligible for free meals. To qualify, federal guidelines say a family of four can earn no more than $34,060 (or 130 percent of the national poverty level). Families living in communities with higher living costs—like Orange County—may earn too much to qualify, but still struggle to provide nutritious meals to their children.

USDA Waivers: The Pilot for Universal Meals

When the pandemic hit, and school meal programs scrambled to provide meals remotely, their incomes plummeted. The USDA issued several nationwide waivers, funded by the two 2020 coronavirus relief packages passed by Congress, to give schools maximum flexibility.

For Pratt-Heavner, these waivers were the “pilot,” for universal free school meals, and extending them into the future is critical for the nation’s recovery. “Everyone is concerned about loss of learning during the pandemic,” she says. “School meals are going to be more important than ever to make sure students are fueled for learning, and more families than ever will depend on them.”

Today, up to 50 million Americans, including 17 million children, are food insecure, with Black, Latinx, and Native American communities disproportionately impacted, according to Feeding America.

In a written statement, a spokesperson for the USDA suggested it is open to considering universal free meals, noting the agency stands ready to work with Congress on any legislation put forward. “USDA will be reviewing the impact of school meal flexibilities, including widespread access to free school meals provided during the pandemic,” the statement read. “What we learn from that review may help inform future policy decisions for providing equitable access to school meals, including the possibility of universal free school meals.”

Making Universal Meals a Reality

No one can say how large the true price tag of universal free meals would be. In 2019, close to 29 million children received school lunch at a cost of $18.7 billion, according to the USDA. And no one knows how many of the nation’s 52 million students in schools participating in the school lunch program would opt for free school meals.

Morales told Civil Eats she was surprised that not everybody participated in the lunch program when schools adopted CEP. “There are many barriers to participating in a meal program,” she said, even one that is free.

USDA analyses of the past year will be important for getting a sense of the potential price tag.

When it comes to political support for the measure, Pratt-Heavner and FitzSimons say it’s too early to identify legislative champions for universal meals. But they have been speaking with Biden Administration officials, however, and both Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) introduced the Universal School Meals Program Act in 2019 when lunch shaming became a national issue.

While they build political support for universal school meals, SNA is also calling for an extension of the USDA waiver into the next academic year. Pratt-Heavner says that school nutrition programs need that certainty. “Families have adjusted to receiving meals at no charge. The impact of going back to the application and verification process is going to be a big hurdle,” she said.

She also noted that some districts are already seeing a decline in applications for free and reduced meals for the coming year, because families have grown accustomed to not having to fill out the paperwork. Children in need may therefore miss out, if the waiver isn’t extended, and school districts may suffer further financial losses.

Rebuilding Democracy with Lunch for All

Alice Waters, founder of the Edible Schoolyard Project and Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, and a chef, author, and activist, argues that schools can offer nutritious, organic, locally sourced meals to all students at no extra cost to traditional meal programs, if they focus on serving more plant-based meals.

“We have to think of meats as a condiment, or maybe a special occasion at home sometimes, and we have to think of cheese [in the same way], as we balance the budget. But there are foods that we could cook from around the world,” she says, mentioning hummus and the Mediterranean diet.

Children enjoy hummus, spicy beans, and grains, says Waters, “foods that people have been nourishing themselves with since the beginning of civilization.”

Gasper, in Wisconsin, agrees. His menu incorporates locally sourced meat—the boxes of hamburger and sausage he received? They came from pigs and cows raised by one of his district’s high-school seniors—through the farm to school program, which works closely with Future Farmers of America (FFA) to purchase local foods produced by students with school district funds. But he also serves a lot of vegetables, like the Brussels sprouts that he roasts with kosher salt and garlic, and the radishes, sunflower sprouts, and lettuce that he grows in the school district’s greenhouse.

Kids love the Brussels sprouts he says, calling it “a huge victory” when parents ask for the recipe because their children want to eat them at home. “We’re teaching a whole generation how to eat well and healthy, which is really going to have a lasting impact on the health of our nation,” he says.

Waters takes an even wider view. She says the idea behind the Edible Schoolyard Project was to build a cafeteria where all students would eat the same food, and that food would be grown by the children or connected to what they were learning in their classrooms.

“Public education is probably our last truly democratic institution,” Waters said. “Every child has to go to school, and so how do you engage them to learn the values that we need to live together on the planet . . . and to really rebuild our democracy?”

Implementation wouldn’t be easy, says Orange County’s Morales, who adds that schools would have to ensure they have the refrigeration space, staff, cafeteria capacity to accommodate a large increase in meals served.

But, she said, “I don’t think you’ll find a nutrition services director who’s not willing to take those challenges on to feed more students.”

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