Don’t buy organic food if you want to seriously address climate change

Steve Savage | Originally posted on Genetic Literacy Project, October 7, 2019

As we approach the 2020s, many consumers have accepted the marketing/activist narrative that organic farming would be the best option for food safety and to mitigate the most damaging effects of climate change. The inconvenient truth is that organic farming is a terrible option from a climate change perspective. Its dependence on manures and compost involves huge, but rarely recognized, greenhouse gas emissions in the form of very potent methane and nitrous oxide.

But perhaps its biggest climate change issue is that organic farms are mostly less productive per unit area than “conventionally” farmed land. With rising food demand driven mostly by rising standards of living in the developing world, there is a need to boost farm production, and that means the very undesirable conversion of forests or grasslands to agriculture in places like Brazil. That leads to major carbon dioxide release from what had been sequestered carbon in the soils, and also the loss of biodiversity and other environmental services provided by those natural lands.

Background on “organic” farming

The organic farming movement started in the late 1800s and early 1900s in response to issues that had arisen in plough-based agriculture, which had converted most of the prairie land in the American Midwest to farmland through the process of sod-busting.

Spurred by the Homestead Act, Americans moved to the Midwest to claim their 640 acres of government land give-away. Most used the new polished steel plow made by the John Deere company to turn what was once a diverse grassland ecosystem into what became one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. However, the way that these farmers needed to control weeds and make the land suitable for planting was to mechanically disturb the soil, and that lead to the death of many soil organisms and the breakdown of the organic matter that they had made using the energy supplied by the plants that grew there.

Over time, as the soil was degraded by this tillage, it became less fertile, less able to capture and store rainfall and less productive. The common solution was often to move on to “virgin” land and do the same thing to the biome there.

The true innovation of the early organic movement was the realization that for a soil to remain productive over time, the organic matter content of the soil had to be replenished after each crop harvest. The movement’s solution was to import large quantities of organic matter from other sites in the form of the manure or composted manure from the animals fed on those other agricultural acres. This worked, but it was never, nor is it now, a viable solution for US or global agriculture.

Even so, starting with the Rhodale Institute’s publication of “Organic Gardening” magazine in the 1960s and the eventual establishment of a commercial organic industry in the 1970s, the mostly non-farmer consumers in US society were told the story that organic farming was the best way to both feed us and protect the environment.

In 1990, the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) was charged by Congress with establishing a national organic standard to supersede the fragmented certification systems that had evolved to that time. It was a major struggle because the very science-oriented USDA was at odds with the early organic marketers who had focused entirely on the narrative that what is “natural” is always best. The marketers finally prevailed. When the national organic standards were issued in 2002, they were not based on science but rather on the naturalistic fallacy.

2016 US Crops By Class

So here is the big picture. The only crop category for which organic yields were higher than the 2016 US average was for forage crops for feeding animals. To have produced all of the US agricultural output from 2016 as organic would have required more than 100 million more acres to have been farmed—an area greater than that of the entire state of California, the third largest US state. That amount of new land suitable for farming clearly does not exist in the US, and so that shortfall would induce more conversion of forest and grassland into farming in places like Brazil, leading to major releases of previously sequestered carbon in those soils

US Forage Crops 2016

There were higher yields for organic Hay and Haylage for animal feed in 2016, but for other animal feed crops, the organic yield was quite a bit lower. 17.1 million acres of alfalfa is grown for hay, mainly to feed dairy cattle. 1.71% of that land is in Certified Organic acres. Most of that land is much less productive.

Plant-based protein in an important component of the human and animal diet, but only relatively minor crops like pinto beans and Austrian Winter beans had higher yields as organic crops in the 2016 season. Nearly 2 million additional acres would have been needed to produce these crops as “Only Organic.” This is in spite of the fact that these crops require much less nitrogen fertilization, because they have an association with soil bacteria that fix atmospheric nitrogen for them in trade for energy.

Corn, soybeans and sorghum grown for grain accounted for 50% of all US crop acres in 2016. These crops provide most of the feed and biofuel for the US, as well as many major food ingredients. To have produced these crops as organic would have required 77 million acres to be farmed, something that would drive major land use conversion in places like Brazil and the associated climate and biodiversity impacts of that change.

Small grains are a major part of the human diet. With the exception of the relatively small crop rye, these plants do not yield very well in organic systems. To have supplied the domestic and important global market for these grains as organic would have required 33 million more planted acres, an area comparable to the entire state of Arkansas. Since many of these crops have quality issues associated with where they are grown, there really aren’t places in the US or the rest of the world where this could happen.

The only vegetable crop for which organic yields were higher was sweet potato. Organic represents 4.9% of total vegetable acreage in the US – much more than the overall 0.5% for all crops. Since many vegetable crops do best in specific climatic zones, that significant current organic footprint probably serves to raise overall prices for consumers, even if they do not purchase organic. When that issue is added to the fear of pesticide residues on vegetables driven by the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen List,” this only contributes to the missed health advantages of vegetables in the diets of many consumers.

To have produced all the 2016 US grown vegetables as organic would have required 1.75 million more acres to be grown—something clearly not possible.

Tree nuts are considered to be a very healthy component of the diet, and may even reduce overeating that causes obesity because they make consumers feel full. These crops only flourish in certain climates, so there is no possibility that they could all be raised as organic. That transition would require 1.5 million more acres to be dedicated to those crops.

Organic yields of small fruits are often much lower than the national average. This is particularly true for strawberries, cranberries and wild blueberries. The one exception is tame blueberries, mostly in Washington state. To have produced all of this healthy fruit as organic would have required 238,000 more acres, which simply do not exist in areas with a suitable climate. In the case of strawberries, if the 11.6% of that valuable coastal land had been grown conventionally, there would have been 194 million pounds more strawberries available to consumers, probably at a lower price.

Organic makes up 2.61% of the land used to grow tree fruit and grapes. To produce all the fruit as organic would require a half million more acres of land. The organic vs. conventional citrus crop data is complicated by whether the crops are grown in California or Florida, where a devastating invasive bacterial disease has dramatically reduced yields. The best hopes for the future of the California industry depend on mostly non-organic pest control solutions.

Organic Tobacco constitutes 3.1% of the total acreage of this cancer-causing crop. Hops production, which is a booming industry these days for craft beer brewing, is 1.3% organic. Sunflower, which is the most significant crop on this list, is planted on 2.7 million US acres, and an additional 1.1 million acres would be required to produce it as organic.

Most cotton production has shifted to India and other places in Asia and Africa, because it is one of the very few crops grown in those regions with big grower benefits of insect resistance and herbicide tolerance. Still, there are 9.5 million US acres grown and it would take another 1.5 million acres to produce this important fiber crop as organic.

Conclusion

So the good news is that organic remains a tiny part of US agriculture. The not so good news is that for key healthy fruit and vegetable crops, these antiquated farming methods are enough of a factor to raise the prices for even those who don’t buy organic.

Eliminating organic agriculture would not be nearly enough to help with climate change mitigation, but some alternative marketing category that would reward growers who practice the best kind of climate-friendly farming, those who utilize no-till methods and cover crops for instance, could make a real contribution. As consumers, our most climate-responsible buying behavior should be to reject organic and its false narratives.

Steve Savage is a plant pathologist and senior contributor to the GLP. Follow him on Twitter @grapedoc. His Pop Agriculture podcast is available for listening or subscription on iTunes and Google Podcasts.

This article has been adapted from a presentation given by Steve Savage titled Care About Climate Change. Don’t Buy Organic and has been reproduced here with permission.

The GLP featured this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. The viewpoint is the author’s own. The GLP’s goal is to stimulate constructive discourse on challenging science issues.

New GM Technology Allows Crops To Just Say No To Dangerous Toxins

Contaminated maize in Africa - Image from International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

(This article originally appeared on Forbes on 3/21/17)

There has been a breakthrough on a way to reduce the risk of a major form of cancer in the developing world. It involves corn genetically modified to "just say no" to the production of a carcinogenic toxin in its grain.

Have you heard of Aflatoxin? It is a major risk factor for cancer in the developing world.  Aflatoxin is a natural chemical produced by a fungus. It is a highly toxic and is a very potent carcinogen in animal studies. Those of us in the developed world are fortunate in that a number of safeguards keep aflatoxin out of our animal feed and human food supplies. Unfortunately, in the developing world, people are not so well protected. In those regions aflatoxin contaminated foods are responsible for many poisonings, and high cancer rates. Researchers in Arizona have recently published a paper about a biotech crop breakthrough that could dramatically improve that situation.

Aflatoxins are chemicals produced by certain fungi that infect food crops (Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus parasiticus). The biggest developing world risks are with maize (corn), and groundnuts (peanuts) - staple, subsistence crops in parts of Africa and Asia. When insect feeding damages crops and/or through drought stress, they are most susceptible to infection by these fungi. The infections can continue to develop after harvest, particularly under less than ideal storage conditions.

Maize (corn) in Africa (Image by Kate Holt/AusAID)

In an article published in the prestigious journal, Science Advances, five scientists from public institutions in Arizona described how they genetically engineered corn to prevent its contamination by aflatoxin. For this article I spoke with Dr. Monica Schmidt of the University of Arizona. Schmidt’s team engineered the corn to make three small RNA molecules designed to specifically bind to parts of a particular RNA produced by the fungus. These small RNAs made in the kernel cells are able to move from the corn into the invading fungus. Once there, they trigger a mechanism in the fungus cells that blocks the production of a key enzyme required by Aspergillus to make aflatoxins. Because this approach involves three separate bits of targeting RNA, it is extremely unlikely that the fungus could mutate in a way to get around this blockage. The corn plants modified this way are effectively protected from contamination with aflatoxin. This kind of corn could give developing world consumers a much safer food supply.

This work was funded by the Gates Foundation, which also funds work to develop corn that is resistant to insect damage and drought. In combination with the aflatoxin protection this constitutes an ideal integrated solution for that critical crop. This is also a proof of concept for taking a similar approach with peanuts. The intention is to make this technology freely available for breeding into the local crop varieties that are best adapted to the regions in question.

What about the developed world? It would actually make a lot of sense to add this technology to the diverse toolset that we already use to keep aflatoxin out of our corn and peanuts. There are also other crops that could benefit from another protection strategy from aflatoxin – notably tree nuts like almonds, pistachios, walnuts and pecans. Aflatoxin can also be an issue in cottonseed that is used as an animal feed. The same biotech strategy may well work with other fungal toxins that can be an issue in other crops.

The world’s consumers can derive great health benefits from the further development of this technology.  This is definitely one to track and to encourage.

You are welcome to comment here and/or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

Nature: The Original Chemist

(This post originally appeared on the PPIP Blog)

We frequently see a contrast drawn between what is “natural” and what is “chemical.” Sometimes products are described as “chemical-free” even though every physical object is made of chemicals. As much as this suggests a problem with our science education, it speaks to a missed opportunity for wonder. Nature is not some sort of cosmic mother figure; on the contrary, nature is composed of diverse biological and physical processes, including some pretty amazing examples of chemistry continually taking place. If we indulge the human personification of nature and it’s “children” a bit, we could say the following about these “chemists:”

• They are extremely creative.
• They can make really complex molecules.
• Some of their chemicals last a really long time – which is sometimes good and sometimes bad.
• They are really good at making polymers.
• They make some extremely toxic things.

I’ll give a few examples below.

Creative Natural Chemistry

The diversity of naturally occurring chemicals is staggering. Humans regularly take advantage of this, particularly when we need ideas for things like pharmaceuticals or crop protection products. Sometimes we extract the chemicals from a plant or other living thing. Often we grow tanks of microbes to harness their ability to make a chemical we find useful. In cases where the amounts of the chemical are too small to be practical from the natural source, human chemists can synthesize the same compound to fulfill the quantity needed. An example of this is a new potato sprout inhibitor. In many other instances, a natural chemical serves as the inspiration for human chemists to experiment with similar structures leading to the discovery of particularly useful drugs, fungicides, etc.

Taxol structure image by Calvero. Pacific Yew tree image by Jason Hollinger via creative commons. Azoxystrobin fungicide structure by Yikrazuul.   Strobilurus tenacellus mushroom picture by Tatiana Bulyonkova at Mushroom Observer.

Complex Natural Chemistry

Some of the most abundant chemicals in nature are simple. Nearly 80% of the air we breathe is nitrogen in the form, N₂ – just two nitrogen atoms bonded together. Nitrogen goes through natural cycles that are important to all living things but often stays in relatively uncomplicated forms like ammonia (NH3) or nitrate (NO3). On the other hand, natural chemicals can be complex, so much so that it would be challenging for even a skilled human chemist to make them.

One of these complex examples is called spinosad and it is produced by a microbe called an actinomycete. We have found this to be a particularly effective insecticide for use on crops yet quite benign for the environment and not toxic to people. The chemical company that produces this for farmers relies on the natural microbe to produce this complicated bit of chemistry.

Structure of Spinosyn image by Capaccio via creative commons.

Long-Lived Natural Chemicals

Most naturally occurring chemicals are part of a cycle in which chemicals combine, making a material, but then eventually break back down into basic constituents to begin the cycle again. Some naturally produced chemicals are relatively long-lived. This can be a good thing in the case of the chemicals that are found in the organic matter of a healthy, undisturbed soil. These are not just any plant or microbial product; they are specific compounds that slowly cascade through a series of breakdown products.

For instance, plants make a group of complex, phenolic chemicals, called lignin, which are important for strengthening their cell walls. Lignin is quite resistant to microbial breakdown, although some fungi can and do destroy it, even as they decompose wood. Lignin is a major component of what is termed humus – the component of soil that helps to buffer nutrients and retain moisture. When soils are converted from wild land to cultivation, there is a dramatic increase in the rate of breakdown of these chemicals and thus the release of the carbon dioxide.

Some long-lived, natural chemicals, however, are less desirable. Under low oxygen conditions, soil-dwelling microbes can interconvert forms of nitrogen (e.g. ammonia to nitrate or nitrate to nitrogen gas). In that process, they “accidentally” make some nitrous oxide (N₂O). Nitrous oxide is around 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas because it lasts longer in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, human activity can exacerbate the production of this naturally generated chemical from farmed soils. Adjustments in farming practices can lead to a better balance of the production of natural chemicals that help or hurt greenhouse gas levels.

Fancy Polymeric Natural Chemicals

In the 1967 movie The Graduate, the character played by Dustin Hoffman is lectured about how the future is going to be all about plastics. Indeed, many people were excited in that era about polymers that chemists were developing, like nylon and polyester. These are based on long chains of monomers attached end to end.

Many of the most abundant natural chemicals on earth are also polymers, which are long chains made of simple sugar molecules. Depending on which sugar and how the sugars are linked together, the polymers result in anything from the cellulose that makes cotton fiber to wood or even the alginate from seaweed we use for thickening foods or the starch that is the primary energy source in foods like pasta, bread, rice or potatoes. Increasingly, we are tapping in to the enzymatic tools found in microbes in order to make polymers from renewable resources.

Variously Toxic Chemistries

Most people associate the term natural with the terms safe and wholesome. This impression has been created by decades of marketing, not by any understanding of the chemicals in nature. Many natural chemicals are perfectly benign; however, nature’s assortment of chemicals also includes many that are toxic by various mechanisms.  Lots of plants make chemicals to protect themselves from being eaten or otherwise bothered. We have all heard about nasty plants like poison ivy or even lovely plants like the Colorado Columbine which are dangerous to eat.

Cut Granny Smith apple image from Wikimedia. Cauliflower image from Calliope via creative commons. Hot pepper image by Andre Karwath via creative commons. Capsaicin structure by Jurgen Martens. Nicotine structure by NEUROtiker. Cyanide structure via Wikimedia.

Food plants also make some fairly toxic chemicals. The seeds of many familiar crops, including apples, cherries and peaches to name a few, contain a chemical storage component called a cyanogenic glycoside. When the seed is damaged, enzymes release hydrogen cyanide from the glycoside. Hydrogen cyanide is very toxic! It is a good reason not to eat those seeds, although it would take a lot of such seeds to hurt a person. The capsaicin that we enjoy in hot sauce is an insect protection chemical made by the pepper plant to defend itself. It is moderately toxic to us but not at the doses we normally consume. Quite a few plants make nicotine to ward off insects including tomatoes, cauliflower and eggplant. Nicotine is very toxic but not at the doses these crops produce. As with any toxic chemical, natural toxins are only an issue to humans at a certain dose.

Some natural chemicals, however, are extremely dangerous and we don’t want those in our food. Mycotoxins are a particularly nasty category of natural chemicals produced by certain fungi. One such chemical, called aflatoxin, is among the more toxic chemicals in existence and is also a potent carcinogen. Unfortunately, under certain circumstances, fungi can produce aflatoxin in food crops. In the developed world, a system of controls and testing keeps us well protected from this; in the developing world, though, aflatoxin is a major cause of death both through acute and chronic effects because it contaminates staple foods like corn or groundnuts.

Aspergillus infected groundnut image from International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Aflatoxin structure by Ju

Some natural chemicals are elegantly selective in their toxicity. A soil bacterium, called Bacillus thuringiensis (usually called “Bt”), makes proteins that are specific in their toxicity to only certain categories of insects. One strain of Bt makes proteins that only effect beetles while another’s toxin only affects caterpillars. None of these Bt proteins are toxic to humans or almost anything else. We have made excellent use of these natural chemical toxins as sprayable insect controls and by genetically engineering plants to make their own supplies of the protein resulting in the plant being insect resistant.

Conclusion

Yes, nature does a great deal of chemistry. For us, these chemicals can be a source of good things, a source of good ideas, and sometimes a hazard or problem.

you are welcome to comment here and/or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

The Many Ways Farmers Control Pests

The post originally appeared on the Putting Pesticides in Perspective (PPIP) Blog on 2/7/17 on which there are also 6 related sub-posts

Whether a farmer is growing in an organic or conventional system, his or her crop needs to be protected from damage from plant pests (insects, fungi, bacteria, viruses, nematodes, weeds…). To fail to minimize pest damage leads to inefficient use of scarce resources like prime farm land, water, or inputs. The quality and safety of the final products can also be compromised.

While materials we think of as “pesticides” play an important role, modern agricultural pest management depends on a combination of several tools and strategies which, when used together, offer a more resilient, economic, and effective means of crop protection. Though some of these practices have been part of traditional farming, many are more recent innovations. The explicit design of these multi-strategy programs began in the 1970s, and the approach is now widely adopted as integrated pest management (IPM). The optimal IPM program varies widely by crop and geography; this post will describe some examples that highlight the various components.

The approaches used to implement IPM programs generally fall into six categories:

1. Avoiding the pest
2. Employing the plant’s own genetic defenses
3. Modifying the climate
4. Disrupting the pest's life cycle
5. Fostering beneficial organisms
6. Using targeted pesticide applications

A brief introduction to each of the six approaches follows with additional links to the more detailed presentations. Each post will link back to the list above.

1. Avoiding the pest

Not all pests occur in all places either because they have not spread there or because they cannot flourish in the climate of a given region. Both of these limitations have been historically important factors to consider when deciding what crops to grow where, and these pest limitations continue to be important considerations for farmers. Long-term, this strategy is limited by climate change and by the extensive movement of people and goods around the world

   2. Employing the plant’s own genetic defenses

Plants fight back against pests by evolving a variety of defensive strategies controlled by genetic traits. Built-in genetic resistance is an attractive form of pest control for farmers, but it is a resource that requires considerable effort to employ and stewardship to maintain as an effective part of an IPM program. For some crops, farmers can maintain a seed bank of genetic variation and draw upon it to keep ahead of the pest’s inevitable tendency to evolve around plant defenses.

When genetic resistance is available, it is generally wise to complement it with other IPM elements, such as pesticides, to avoid losing the valuable traits. For many crops, conventional methods of breeding are too slow and/or complex to easily employ genetic solutions. Traditional and advanced grafting approaches offer a dual plant genetics approach that has been quite useful in many systems. Advancements in biotechnology allow farmers to use same-species resistance genes in hard-to-breed crops as well as novel genetic approaches that have shown considerable benefit in the few cases where they have been allowed to-date.

   3. Modifying the climate

In some cases, farmers can shift the microclimate in which the plant is grown enough to reduce the threat of certain pests. Various degrees of protected culture have been widely used to shield crops from rain and/or to shift the temperature regime to extend the growing season at either end. The nature of the plant canopy can sometimes be managed to reduce humidity, increase light or otherwise create a microenvironment that is suppressive to certain pests.

   4. Disrupting the pest's life cycle

Several strategies for pest control center on making it more difficult for the pests to reproduce. These range from crop rotation to insect pheromones to removal of damaged or infested plant parts. Other approaches involve the release of male insects which are sterile so that the females with which they mate do not produce any offspring.

   5. Fostering beneficial organisms 

Even pests have pests, and often there are ways that farmers can encourage these natural enemies to help keep pest populations low enough to obviate the need for other control measures. Sometimes, it is possible to actively produce and add the bio-control organisms to the system.

   6. Using targeted pesticide applications

Farmers can use a wide range of crop protection agents as part of an IPM system. In a great many cases, these agents are low hazard options in terms of environmental, beneficial, or human impact, but the use of all such agents is highly regulated on a national and state level. These crop protection agents are often important for preserving the utility of other IPM approaches, particularly genetic resistance. Farmers have many economic and practical incentives to only use these materials on an as-needed basis.

Pest control in agriculture is a multi-dimensional effort, and pesticides are just one of the important tools that farmers employ. Some of these tools have been in use for a long time and some are new. With climate change, the control of pests will become even more difficult. As the global population grows and standards of living increase, it will be even more important for farmers to avoid the sort of losses and food waste that pest cause. Fortunately, the toolbox available to fight pests is diverse and constantly improving.

You are welcome to comment here and/or to email me at savage.sd@gmail.com

A Day Of Accidental Ag Tourism

(This post originally appeared on Better Food Stories 10/3/16)

A few weeks ago I flew to Pasco, Washington and then drove up to Yakima. Eastern Washington is a very dry region, but it has several major rivers and the Columbia Basin Reclamation Project that allow for a flourishing and diverse agricultural industry. My progress was slowed by an irresistible urge to continually exit the main highway to take pictures of these carefully tended crops and to see some of the on-going innovation in planting systems.

A classical, widely spaced orchard

Tree fruits like apples, pears and cherries have long been important to this region. It was fascinating so see some of the innovation used to grow these crops. The image above is from a more classic orchard where large trees are grown with fairly wide spacing between trees and with large swaths between the rows. The next image shows a newer style orchard, in which trees are planted at high density along the row (every 18” or so), and supported by a trellis.

A newer, high-density, trellised orchard

This system gets the trees into full bearing within 2-3 years and can be harvested without the use of ladders (a worker safety and efficiency advantage). The space between the rows is also narrower requiring smaller equipment in terms of tractors, sprayers etc. Note that weeds are controlled in the row with herbicides for water efficiency, and the “middles” support a diverse “cover crop” which stabilizes and feeds the soil.

An alternative "V"shaped trellis system for apples

In the photo above we see a different trellising strategy. In this case, the high density trees are trained in a “V” shape with the goal of even more efficiently capturing the sunlight. Driving further down the road I saw something unusual in the distance and decided to investigate.

An interesting, covered orchard in the distance

It turned out to be another high-density, trellised apple orchard, but in this case it was being grown under a shade cloth to filter the light. This would reduce the chance of fruit getting a “sunburn”, and as you can see, this orchard had an abundant crop of picture-perfect fruit nearing maturity.

High density trellis under shade cloth

Hops

Hops, a highly aromatic plant, have been grown in this region since the 1870s, but even more so of late to meet demand for the booming craft beer industry. Hops are a vine which is trained on very tall (20’ or more) trellises. It is quite impressive to see! From the side of the field (below) it is a giant green wall.

One of the many "hop yards" in Washington serving the craft beer boom

Hops grown on trellises with telephone pole sized supports

Grapes

Washington state is home to a flourishing grape industry with many excellent offerings for wine aficionados. It has also been a long-term source of juice grapes, which is what you see in the vineyard below. Note again the clean vine-row and the cover crop in the “middles.” This is the best way to use water efficiently, build soil quality, and prevent erosion on these hilly locations.

Vineyards

Eastern Washington is also home to many other crops. I’ll just throw in two more examples of a sweet corn field and an alfalfa field.

Sweet Corn 

Alfalfa

The next day I had the privilege to spend time with a number of representatives of the grower organizations and others that support these Washington farmers. The meeting was organized by the Washington Friends of Farms and Forests, which is a grass roots alliance of those who grow the crops or tend the timberlands. I’ll be working with many of these folks for the next few months documenting some of their challenges and strategies tending these diverse plant species for the benefit of the broader society. As always, it was great to see real farming in action!