sustainable agriculture

New data shows another year of rapid expansion in the organic sector, with the number of certified organic farms and businesses up by 13 percent during 2016, said USDA. "This is the highest growth rate since 2008," said USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service, and it follows a 12 percent increase in 2015.

The Republican-controlled state Senate voted to close the 30-year-old Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and shift $1.5 million previously earmarked for it to a nutrient research center.

The USDA wrapped up months of work on animal welfare rules for organic producers today by releasing the regulation two days before the end of the Obama administration. The regulation requires that producers provide outdoor access for poultry while codifying biosecurity practices against disease spread by wild birds.

In a step the organic farming industry says will expand acreage, the USDA will allow growers to sell their products as "certified transitional" organic goods during the three-year conversion to organic farming.

One of the largest family-owned wineries in the United States, Jackson Family Wines, is facing climate change head-on, even as experts predict falling grape yields because of shifting weather patterns, says The New York Times. The makers of Kendall-Jackson chardonnay, a “supermarket staple,” the Jackson clan has deployed high-tech water-efficiency programs, drones and old-school falcons to manage pests in the wake of California’s drought and higher temperatures.

Half of the 88 projects selected to receive $225 million in funding for 2017 through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program focus on drought and water quality, says USDA. Private, local and state sources will provide up to $500 million matching funds for the program, which stimulates voluntary soil and water conservation on private land across a landscape.

General Mills is teaming up with the Xerces Society, a wildlife conservation nonprofit, to help save pollinators, says The Guardian. The food manufacturer, which has contributed $4 million to other pollinator conservation projects since 2011,says it will give $2 million to the Xerces-led program to make 100,000 acres of North American farmland pollinator-friendly over the next five years.

The Field to Market alliance says in an assessment issued every four years that, on the whole, 10 major U.S. crops have produced more yield on less land with improved environmental outcomes on a per-unit-of-production basis. The alliance calls this "a significant step toward a more sustainable farming system," but cautions that "improvements are plateauing for a number of crops and indicators."

With enrollment in the land-idling Conservation Reserve nearing its statutory limit of 24 million acres, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced revisions in the program to protect water quality and to benefit wildlife, pollinators and wetlands. Under one of the changes, USDA will pay up to 90 percent of the cost of environmentally beneficial practices, such as bioreactors and saturated buffers that clean up run-off from drainage lines running beneath cropland.

“About a third of the world's soils are degraded because of soil erosion, contamination, urbanization and other issues,” but planting pulses like lentils and chickpeas could help, says Reuters, quoting a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization report.

The policies of the "Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, a taxpayer-funded insurance program managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) and administered by a network of private companies,” punish farmers for environmentally-friendly practices, like planting cover crops, says Kristin Ohlson in FERN’s latest story, which was produced with Ensia.

An annual report on global agriculture says productivity growth is stagnating in low-income countries at 1.3 percent, far below the 1.75-percent increase needed yearly to assure enough food and fiber for a world population forecast to be 9.7 billion in 2050. The Global Harvest Initiative, a coalition of agribusinesses and consulting groups, says the productivity rate is growing at 1.73 percent worldwide currently, the third year in a row that it has run below the target.

Some activist groups are abandoning the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil—a panel of palm producers, consumer companies, and activist groups that provides sustainability certificates for the industry—over complaints that it has not done enough to correct industry abuses.

The USDA will open a three-month enrollment period on Nov. 14 for the Conservation Stewardship Program, which pays farmers and ranchers for making soil, water and wildlife conservation a part of their daily operations. A small-farm group says producers should submit an initial application if they're interested in the program, but it says USDA has yet to fully describe its changes to CSP.

Whether it's paleo meal kits or pea-based condiments, some of the country’s leading food-tech entrepreneurs and investors shared their thoughts on the future of sustainable food at FERN Talk & Eats in Silicon Valley.

Four hundred of the biggest food companies in the U.S. and Europe have pledged not to buy from suppliers responsible for deforestation. But no one can say for sure whether their promises are actually protecting forests, according to a report from Climate Focus.

Americans agree that federal aid to farmers during a disaster is important. They are less likely to support federal assistance to help producers adopt sustainable farming practices, according to the quarterly Gardiner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey.