Eco Living

Opower

Jul 5th, 2012 | By Aubrey Yee

Information-based energy efficiency (IBEE) is the new buzz in large scale energy savings, and Opower is one of the companies leading the pack. Utilitizing the power of social media and the information gleaned from massive amounts of data, Opower is helping Americans save incredible amounts of energy (and plenty of money) each month.
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Food System

When you can't trust a label

Jul 3rd, 2012 | By Aubrey Yee

Natural, organic, fair-trade, these are all labels on our food that we have come to trust, labels that we believe tell us our purchases are good for us, good for the environment, that the people who grew our food were treated well. But who sets the standards for the labeling and who keeps track of those standards if there are any?
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Food System

Food for all

Jul 2nd, 2012 | By Aubrey Yee

Raj Patel is an award winning writer, activist and academic concerned with how to feed the world. He saliently points out that more than 1.5 billion people worldwide are overweight and another 1 billion are going hungry. We are producing enough calories, but not nourishing the world. There is something clearly broken about our food system.
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Transportation

USDA Announces Funding to Help Rural American Businesses Go Green

Jul 2nd, 2012 | By Nicole Rogers

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack meeting Tom Vanwingerden, Abe Vanwingerden and Art Vanwingerden of Metrolina Greenhouses. Photo by Holly Hess, via USDA flickr stream, under CC BY 2.0.

On June 25, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced USDA funding for 450 projects that help agricultural producers and rural small businesses use renewable energy technologies, reduce energy consumption, and/or conduct feasibility studies for renewable energy projects. In all, the USDA announced nearly $7.4 million in energy grants.

Secretary Vilsack made the announcement while touring family-owned Metrolina Greenhouses in Huntersville, North Carolina. Metrolina has received a REAP guaranteed loan and three grants totaling over $1 million since 2007. In 2009, Metrolina received a REAP guaranteed loan and a grant to construct a wood boiler heating system to supplement and replace the natural gas and fuel used at their 120-acre facility. In addition to heating Metrolina’s greenhouses, using wood chips in the boiler provides an additional market for local lumber mills and logging operations.

Rick Alexander, a Tennessee small business owner, is using a Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant and investing another $325,000 to create the first solar powered business in his county. Electricity is the largest expense for his climate-controlled storage facility. The 260 panel, 60 kW solar photovoltaic system is expected to generate more than 71,000 kWh – enough electricity to meet over half of the energy needs of his business for the next two decades. By also participating in the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Generation Partners program, Alexander earns a premium on each clean kW produced, which is more than enough to cover the average monthly cost of electricity for his businesses.

In Mount Hope, Wisconsin, Maurice Nichols was selected to receive a grant to purchase a fuel efficient grain dryer for his farm, saving his business over 42% in annual energy usage. Not only is the dryer fuel efficient, but the fact that it is on site saves in trucking costs as well.

This funding is made available through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which is authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill. (See our post on the 2012 Farm Bill.) REAP offers funds for farmers, ranchers and rural small businesses to purchase and install renewable energy systems and make energy-efficiency improvements. These federal funds leverage other funding sources for rural businesses, which hopefully leads to their sustained growth in the future, and an improved quality of life in rural America.

Just one more example of how the tide is turning toward alternative energy nationwide!

USDA Press Release

Food System

Award-Winning Chef Dan Barber

Jul 2nd, 2012 | By Aubrey Yee

Salad greens in Stone Barns Center's 22,000-square foot, minimally-heated greenhouse. Photo: Roberto Falck Photography

This weekend, the Wall Street Journal featured renowned chef Dan Barber and his deep and passionate commitment to the local food movement. It’s a commitment that has brought great notoriety to both his cooking and the Stone Barns Center where his unique restaurant, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, resides. The brilliant chef shares his thoughts on everything from the myth of guilt-free eating to locavorism. He’s convinced we are just seeing the beginning of locavorism’s potential. Read the article from Friday’s Wall Street Journal here.

For more on the Stone Barns Center, see our previous post, Growing a New Crop of Farmers.

Food System

Big Data and Dairy Cows

Jul 2nd, 2012 | By Aubrey Yee

Badger-Bluff Fannie Freddie is America’s best Holstein bull. That’s no small feat in a field of 8 million other dairy cows. He’s so fabulous that he already has some 346 daughters on the books. This is considerable being that he was only born in 2004 and his semen was only put on the market a few years ago.

In 2009, the USDA took a look at some 50,000 markers on his DNA that were related to good milk production and officially declared him the best bull for siring milk producing daughters. They made this declaration before he had ever sired any progeny. Now that the first of his daughters have reached milk producing age, the predictions have been proven correct and the USDA’s use of big data has shown that a new sort of 21st century analysis deserves a central place in the US Dairy Industry.

While you might not expect it, dairy breeding is a perfect field for quantitative analysis of the sort that machine learning algorithms can offer today. Taking vast amounts of data and scanning for key information is what these algorithms are created to do. It’s how your Google search works and how online advertisers always seem to know exactly what you were just looking at online. In the dairy world, breeders keep copious pedigree records and sought after dairy cows need exhibit only a few important traits such as milk production, fat in the milk, protein in the milk, longevity, udder quality, all of which are easy to measure and quantify.

The reality is, in the mid-20th century dairy cows would be expected to produce less than 5,000 pounds of milk in a lifetime. Today that number is closer to 21,000 pounds. To reach these increases in output dairy producers have sometimes turned to hormones, but they have increasingly turned to genetics and careful selection of the best bred herd. The technology we have today, and the ability to screen DNA is greatly increasing the speed of a genetic selection process that has long been at work in the industry.

What this means for Badger-Bluff Fannie Freddie is a vast array of progeny scattered all over the country. He is in many ways the epitome of the modern dairy industry. An industry that is increasingly dependent upon technology and data to improve efficiency and effectively feed our growing populations.

Transportation

2012 Farm Bill Update

Jun 29th, 2012 | By Nicole Rogers

Flanked / by flickr user Nicholas_T / CC BY 2.0

Have you been following the 2012 Farm Bill? The bill is renewed every five years and dictates congressional spending on everything from farm subsidies, to food stamps (the SNAP program), to conservation programs. The Senate approved their version of the bill June 21, and the House Agriculture Committee will mark up their own bill beginning July 11.

This year, Senators introduced more than 300 amendments to the farm bill, with 73 amendments approved for debate. Of the 73 considered by the Senate and either approved or rejected, important amendments include the following (taken directly from the PR Watch website):

>“Consumers Right to Know About Genetically Engineered Food Act”: Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) amendment number 2310, the “Consumers Right to Know About Genetically Engineered Food Act,” which would have allowed states to adopt labeling requirements for genetically engineered foods, was rejected. Sen. Sanders said of his amendment, “All over this country, people are becoming more conscious about the foods they are eating and the foods they are serving to their kids, and this is certainly true for genetically engineered foods. I believe that when a mother goes to the store and purchases food for her child, she has the right to know what she is feeding her child.”

>Crop Insurance for Organic Farmers: Senator Jeff Merkley’s (D-OR) amendment number 2382, which addresses barriers to make crop insurance more accessible to organic farmers, was agreed to. Crop insurance protects farmers financially when crops are lost due to natural disasters (crop-yield insurance), or when the prices of commodity crops decline (crop-revenue insurance). The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) currently charges a five percent surcharge on crop insurance for organic farmers who participate in federal crop insurance programs. Organic crops are currently insured at the same amounts as conventional crops, despite often being worth up to twice as much as a conventional crop in the marketplace. This means that organic farmers currently are not adequately compensated if they suffer a crop loss, relative to conventional farmers’ compensation.

>Crop Insurance for Conservationists: Senator Saxby Chambliss’ (R-GA) amendment number 2438, which would link the receipt of federally subsidized crop insurance to basic conservation requirements, was agreed to.

>Crop Insurance for Millionaires: Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) [Ed: and Dick Durbin’s (D-IL)] amendment number 2439, which would limit the amount of insurance subsidies going to the wealthiest farmers – persons or corporations grossing more than $750,000 a year – was agreed to, although this limitation wouldn’t take effect until the completion of a study on the effects of the limitation.

>Food for Struggling Families and School Children: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) amendment number 2156, which would have struck $4.5 billion in cuts to SNAP and invested $500 million over ten years in the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) providing fresh produce snacks to schoolchildren, was rejected. However, Senator Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) amendments, 2174 and 2172, which would have further cut SNAP funding as well as limiting eligibility, were also rejected.

>Rural Development and Beginning Farmer Programs: Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) amendment number 2445, which would fund rural development and beginning farmer programs, was agreed to.

>Organic Certification Cost Sharing: Senator Pat Toomey’s (R-PA) amendment number 2217, which would have eliminated the organic certification cost share program, was rejected. This program reimburses eligible farmers who want to certify their operations organic for a portion of the costs of that certification.

>For more on the hundreds of amendments proposed to the Senate version of the farm bill, see Marjorie Roswell’s collaborative and interactive charts at the Farm Bill Primer.

There are signs that progress on the bill may stall in the house. So what’s the hold-up? According to the Chicago Tribune:

>Agriculture Committee leaders in the House and Senate disagree on fundamental points for the new farm law, ranging from how much to cut spending to how extensive reforms should be. The House wants much deeper cuts in food stamps and $10 billion more in cuts overall than the Senate and would offer higher price supports to farmers when the Senate would end them.

The New York Times offers excellent coverage of the Senate’s passage of the bill, and the possible issues the bill may have in the House. Environmental Working Group provides a detailed roll call where you can see how your senator voted on a few of these amendments.

It’s worth taking a little time and doing your homework on the Farm Bill. It doesn’t just affect farmers, it affects us all for years to come.

Transportation

Oil and the Weight of the World

Jun 23rd, 2012 | By Nicole Rogers

Some poor countries may have booming population growth, but oil rich countries could be exhausting the world’s resources just as fast with our waistlines. New research in the journal BMC Public Health argues that tackling population weight is crucial for food security and ecological sustainability.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine say that people’s weight – not just population size – should be taken into account when planning how to deal with increasing pressure on the planet’s dwindling resources. Presumably, this is because weight is a good indication of consumption, particularly of richer foods like meat and dairy that require more resources (like petroleum) to obtain.

Using data from the United Nations and World Health Organization, the researchers estimated the weight of the world’s entire adult population to be about 316 million tons. Of that total weight, they then estimated that 17 million tons of it is a result of people being overweight, and an additional 3.9 million tons is due to obesity.

While North Americans only account for 6% of the world’s population, we’re responsible for 34% of the world’s biomass due to obesity. By contrast, Asia has 61% of the world’s population but only 13% of the world’s biomass due to obesity. So what role does regional obesity play in environmental sustainability? One of the authors of the paper, Professor Ian Roberts, explained the thinking behind the calculation.

>”When people think about environmental sustainability, they immediately focus on population. Actually, when it comes down to it - it’s not how many mouths there are to feed, it’s how much flesh there is on the planet.”

>”If every country in the world had the same level of fatness that we see in the USA, in weight terms that would be like an extra billion people of world average body mass.”

Professor Roberts is careful to point out that focusing on obesity in individuals or in groups is divisive and unhelpful. “One of the problems with definitions of obesity is that it fosters a ‘them and us’ ideal. Actually, we’re all getting fatter,” he told BBC News.

While poor countries can obviously have leaner populations for all the wrong reasons, the researchers point to Japan as a good example of a prosperous country with a low obesity rate that could serve as a model for other countries.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the study is its coverage of how many oil rich nations have the heaviest populations. When you look at the list of countries with the largest proportion of overweight and obese citizens, it is clear that petroleum may play a role in obesity.

Heaviest 10 (for nations with more than 100,000 people):

1. United States
2. Kuwait
3. Croatia
4. Qatar
5. Egypt
6. United Arab Emirates
7. Trinidad and Tobago
8. Argentina
9. Greece
10. Bahrain

Data and list obtained from the research here.

Prof Roberts says that the high number of Middle Eastern countries on the list is due to the impact of the automobile.

>”One of the most important determinants of average body mass index is motor vehicle gas consumption per capita. So, it is no surprise to see many of the Arab countries in the list - people eat but they move very little because they drive everywhere.”

Aside from all of the other profound drawbacks to oil dependence, obesity seems to have an exponential impact – both on our health and our use of dwindling resources. Obesity is a complex issue, caused by a number of factors, but what’s the connection to petroleum? Someone who consumes 4000 calories a day certainly has a larger carbon footprint than someone who consumes 2000 calories a day, particularly if the foods they are eating are shipped long distances, out of season, with an abundance of packaging. Having easy and affordable access to plentiful oil, as the citizens of most of the countries above do, makes it easier to have a larger carbon footprint. With oil, you can ship foods long distances, not do much “work” in the acquisition of food, and the infrastructure is there to drive everywhere you want. Have you ever driven cross-country in the US? It’s almost impossible not to end up going through a drive-though and eating in your car at some point in the voyage. At least here in the US, we have an infrastructure built around cars that lends itself to a continued dependence on oil.

But all is not lost. There’s never been a better time to get healthy and less oil dependent. Get out on your bike, start looking for a fuel efficient vehicle, and eat local! Your waistline, wallet, and the world will thank you.

The weight of nations: an estimation of adult human biomass [BMC Public Health]

Global Weight Gain More Damaging Than Rising Numbers [BBC]

Humans Are 17 Million Tons Overweight [Live Science]

Transportation

US Demand for Oil and Gasoline Continues to Fall

Jun 20th, 2012 | By Nicole Rogers

Oil demand in the US will drop 0.4% to a 15-year low of 18.76 million barrels a day this year, according to a forecast released June 11 by the EIA (The US Department of Energy). Additionally, demand for gasoline, the most widely used petroleum product in the US, is expected to slip 0.6% from a year earlier, the lowest level since 2001.  As the world’s biggest consumer of  oil, this is a significant shift for the US, and a trend Sustainable America hopes to help continue.

“A part of it may be from slow economic growth, which is too bad, but much of it is from the US becoming less oil-intensive in its GDP creation and from a more fuel efficient fleet of vehicles.” Nick Tiller, founder of Sustainable America, wrote in an email.

As you can see in the graph from the EIA above, the consumption of oil products fluctuates, but in general oil consumption has been trending downward recently, and will continue to according to projections by the EIA.

By making small changes everyday to minimize our personal consumption of oil we can all hope to sustain and encourage this trend in the future. See more posts in Sustainable America’s Good Practices / Individual Action category to learn how you can take action today!