Welcome to FERN’s Friday Feed (#FFF), where we share the stories from this week that made us stop and think.
The New Food Economy
In 2015, when Perdue purchased Niman Ranch, advocates for sustainable livestock production were distraught, assuming the agribusiness giant would destroy the venerable California ranch that had pioneered progressive animal husbandry. But something funny happened on the way to that depressing outcome: Niman’s ethos began to change the way Perdue operates. “[T]his relationship couldn’t be more timely in the sense that they’re early adopters of this new way of participating in a food system that’s going to be the direction the future takes things,” says Dr. Fred Kirschenmann, distinguished fellow at The Aldo Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa and president of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in New York.
Quartz
The humble kohlrabi is not typically a go-to vegetable for, well, pretty much anything. At least not in this country. But a vertical-farming operation in New Jersey is producing a boutique version, which can be grown year-round, that promises to elevate what the Oxford Companion to Food describes as “a bizarre form of the common cabbage.” Annaliese Griffin writes: “The two different kinds of kohlrabi Bowery sent me to sample … totally changed my view of the vegetable. The larger green ones … combined the best elements of jicama, cucumber, broccoli stems, and radishes into one delicious vegetable.”
Earnest farm documentary was actually an industry shill
The National Observer
A wholesome-seeming documentary purported to demystify farming for Canadians by profiling family farms. There was just one problem: It was backed by the pesticide industry. “The goal of the marketing efforts is to create more ‘shareworthy content’ that would build public support for the use of pesticides and genetically modified organisms, according to [a] leaked presentation,” writes Carl Meyer. “It is coming to light at a time when the industry is under scrutiny over public health concerns that could prompt governments to impose tougher regulations that cut into profits.”
An allergen sensor that doesn’t yet deliver on its promises
The Verge
What if a portable sensor could tell you whether something you don’t want to eat—say peanuts or gluten—was in the food you were about to eat? The potential market for Nima’s food sensors is huge, but some in the scientific community are worried that the devices don’t actually work. “What makes the scientific community members who spoke to The Verge skeptical of Nima’s value for allergic individuals,” writes Alex Shultz, “is its practice of releasing its internal tests first and validation data later.”
The marvel of Egypt’s ancient egg ovens
Atlas Obscura
In Egypt, chicken eggs are still hatched by the thousands inside egg incubators, an engineering marvel that was developed over 2,000 years ago. “From the outside, many incubators looked like smaller, more rounded versions of the pyramids. They sat upon rectangular brick foundations, and had conic-shaped chimneys with a circular opening at the top. That thousands of eggs could be hatched in a single oven was an impressive feat, considering that a broody hen can only hatch up to 15 eggs at a time. Incubator hatching also meant that hens could spend more time laying eggs.”