The Nitrogen Off-Ramp: Navigating a Pivotal Season in American Agriculture

Native Advertisement Article By: TeraGanix

The conversations started changing in February…

For years, our conversations with farmers centered on incremental gains, improving soil structure or nudging yields higher. But over the last few weeks, the tone has shifted to something closer to crisis.

One grower, who has been with us for years, recently told us point-blank while finalizing his enrollment in our Nitrogen Reduction Program: “I cannot afford NOT to do this. We are in total crisis mode.”

He isn’t alone. We are hearing this from farmers and ag-chemical distributors daily who are describing a “perfect storm” that is making this the most pivotal season in modern farming history.

The State of Play: A Global Supply Cliff

The traditional just-in-time fertilizer model has hit a wall. Farmers are currently fighting over the last remaining domestic supplies, in some cases bidding $1,000 per ton for nitrogen fertilizer just to ensure they can plant. The factors at play are structural and global:

• Physical Infrastructure Hits: Recent strikes on the South Pars gas facilities, the wellhead of global nitrogen feedstock, have physically hampered production.
• Export Lockdowns: China, the world’s leading exporter of phosphate and urea, has further restricted exports to protect its own domestic food security.
• June Stock-Out: Industry insiders are projecting a total depletion of U.S. fertilizer inventory by June, with no clear timeline for a re-supply.

Prices are soaring past $1,000 per ton, but the bigger fear isn’t the price… it’s the availability. If the supply isn’t reupped in time for side-dressing, many farms simply won’t make it.

The Soybean Pivot?

In an attempt to sidestep the nitrogen bill, we are seeing a wave of corn and wheat growers looking to pivot acreage to soybeans at the eleventh hour.

The market is moving a million miles an hour, but based on current trend yields, the data reveals a critical paradox for the 2026 season. If even 5% to 10% of planned corn acres shift to soybeans nationwide, the sheer volume of the resulting soybean glut could crater harvest prices.

Note: These are educated guesses based on gross revenue minus variable costs like seed and fertilizer. They don’t account for land rent, but the trend is undeniable.

The question for the resilient farmer is: How do I protect my 2026 yield when the fertilizer market is physically running dry?

The Solution: Making 1 Unit do the Work of 10

The traditional method of dropping raw chemical nitrogen on soil is profoundly inefficient. Estimates show that 60% to 80% of applied nitrogen is lost to leaching and evaporation before the plant can ever utilize it. You are paying for 100 units to get the benefit of 30.

The TeraGanix Nitrogen Reduction Program is built to solve this efficiency gap. Our protocol is centered on a Biological Off-Ramp that allows growers to cut synthetic inputs by 50% while maintaining full yield potential.

How it Works:

Instead of “dumping and hoping,” we lead with a biological system that makes nitrogen work where and when the plant actually needs it.

We convert nitrogen into amino acid forms and deliver it through a targeted foliar application-right at peak vegetative demand-when the plant is actively building biomass, not filling grain.

That means faster uptake, minimal loss, and significantly higher efficiency per unit applied. In many cases, growers are seeing each unit of nitrogen go multiple times further compared to conventional programs.

We aren’t just adding biology, we are changing the delivery engine of the farm. We are helping farmers move from a system of high-waste chemistry to one of high-efficiency biology.

A Make-or-Break Moment

We believe in agricultural resiliency, but we also recognize that 2026 is a make-or-break year. For many farmers, this biological transition is no longer a nice-to-have experimental trial. It’s the only viable option to protect the farm’s solvency.

Because of the surge in demand, our team is currently slammed on the phones helping farmers write their 2026 protocols. We know that getting into a biological program requires a lead cycle for logistics and planning, which is why we are hosting weekly workshops to get as many farmers off the cliff as possible.

The global fertilizer monopolies and geopolitical conflicts are outside of your control. Your nutrient use efficiency is not.

Take the Next Step:

We invite you to join one of our upcoming Nitrogen Reduction Workshops held every Tuesday and Thursday morning. We will walk through the specific math of the program, review our latest 2025 case studies, and help you calculate your potential savings.

Register for the Nitrogen Strategy Workshop

Reserve your spot today. Let’s make sure you have the protocols and the supply you need to stay in the game this season.

Calculate Your Potential Savings

The post appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

A Review of: Food Crash: why organic is the only way forward

A farmer who is a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life? How so?

In November 2016 Pope Francis issued new statutes for the Pontifical Academy for Life. He directed that the Academy, which was originally founded in 1994 by Pope John Paul II to defend and promote ‘the value of human life and the dignity of the person’, was to widen the scope of its research and teaching so as to include not only “the care of the dignity of the human person at different stages of life”, but also “the promotion of a quality of human life that integrates its material and spiritual value with a view to an authentic ‘human ecology’ that helps recover the original balance of creation between the human person and the entire universe”.

The year before, in 2015, Pope Francis had issued his encyclical letter Laudato Si’. In that letter, he made a major contribution to a tradition of teaching which goes back at least to the 12^th century, to the writings of Francis of Assisi.

The earlier Francis, in his Canticle of the Creatures, had called the earth ‘our sister, our mother’ who cries out because of the harms we have inflicted on her by an irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.

The later Francis claimed that the external deserts of the world are growing because the ‘internal deserts’ in the human heart have become so vast. For this reason, he said, the ecological crisis is itself a ‘summons to interior conversion’. And he added that some committed and prayerful Christians, excused by ‘realism and pragmatism’, tended to ridicule expressions of concern for the environment. Others are passive, choosing not to change their habits. What both need, Franics said, is an ‘ecological conversion’.

And so, it should not have been surprising that one of the people Francis appointed to the newly-refreshed Pontifical Academy was an internationally-known and widely-respected agronomist, an expert in organic farming, someone who had spent his life not only cultivating a farm in Bavaria (originally, using industrial or ‘conventional’ techniques) but also working for three years in Haiti and in other parts of the world with people who do not enjoy our western prosperity.

That ‘farmer’ is Felix zu Löwenstein. His book, Food Crash: why organic is the only way forward, was originally written and published (in 2011) in German. Only recently has it been translated into English and thus made available to an English-speaking audience.

A food crash is a collapse of the global food system. The thesis of Food Crash can be stated simply: the world will not be able to feed its people, there will be a collapse in the world food system, unless we turn from ‘conventional’ farming to organic farming and unless organic farming undergoes significant development. Conventional farming (often still referred to as ‘industrial’ farming) is the form of agriculture practiced by the majority of farmers in industrialized nations. It uses all the new possibilities offered by agricultural technologies, agrochemicals and genetic engineering; it is capital-intensive (because seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and feed have to be brought into the farm from outside) and labor-intensive (because technical progress requires higher production per hectare and per hour worked).

The term ‘organic farming’ originally referred to farming’s use of organic matter as the primary source of soil health and plant nutrition in contrast to the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers in conventional farming. Today organic farming should be understood as embodying four principles; the principle of health (that it should sustain and enhance the health of the soil, plant, animal, human and planet as one and indivisible); the principle of ecology (that it should be based on living ecological systems and cycles, work with them, emulate them, and help sustain them); the principle of fairness (that it should build on relationships that ensure fairness with regard to the common environment and life opportunities); and the principle of care (that it should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well-being of current and future generations and the environment).

The ‘green revolution’ promised that only by employing the methods of industrial farming which include the use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers, genetic engineering, etc, would we be able now, and in the future, to feed the world’s growing population. To anyone brought up on the notion of the ‘green revolution’, the thesis of Food Crash is therefore challenging and unsettling. But that reaction might be explained by agribusiness and its lobbying in the political domain: this typically works against the development of knowledge and awareness of how wasteful are our lifestyles and how undesirable are our ways of using land and producing foods (not to mention our individual dietary habits). Food Crash provides a wonderful tool for dispelling that ignorance. Full of technical detail, it is immensely readable.

Food Crash starts with the facts of world hunger and asks whether insufficient production per acre of arable land is the cause. Dr Löwenstein argues against putting our trust in agribusiness as the solution: he argues for what he calls ‘ecological intensification’ as the basis for food production. And he sets out a range of instruments for uncoupling agricultural and food economy from its current unreliable basis in industrial farming and for shifting to a sustainable basis in organic farming.

The subject matter of Food Crash is complex. Connections are made between how soil is nourished or depleted, why non-economic criteria should be included in world trade agreements, how patent and tax laws need rethinking, why organic farming needs to develop just as much sophistication as has conventional farming.

The argument is dotted with illustrations: for example, the success story of a partnership between small farmers and scientists in the Philippines; the political causes of the potato famine that drove so many Irish to Australia; the usury trap for farmers in the ‘third’ world; why jumping ‘cold turkey’ into organic methods as happened in Sri Lanka is not a good thing; and about the complicated story of Haiti where international aid generally fosters dependency but where some individual initiatives show that it is possible to provide aid so as to generate sustainable success.

Dr Löwenstein puts forward ways in which we non-specialists can evaluate the range of solutions advanced in debates that rely on technical arguments: about whether human activity is the cause of climate change, about whether setting aside productive arable land for the growing of biofuels such as rape-seed is overall a good thing, about why speaking the ecological truth requires internalizing the ‘external’ costs of goods and services. A story about alternative contracts for waste disposal in the streets of Naples is his telling example of this last question; imagine the difference in two bids for a contract, one which internalizes all the true costs of the final disposal of the waste, the other which ignores (‘externalizes’) the social costs of, say, dumping the waste into the sea. Which is likely to be the successful bid?

He is instructive about how cattle and sheep have gone from being food partners – that convert grasslands unsuitable for the direct production of human food into meat and milk – to being food competitors of humans, living on energy-concentrated feeds that, though they bring high yields of meat and milk, are not good for the health of the animals themselves (let alone the human consumers). Not only does this represent a failure of our responsibility to be good stewards, co-creators of the world in which these animals live with us, but it’s also no good for human health. There is a relationship, though it’s complex, between the affluent’s world’s over-eating on the one hand and the impoverished world’s hunger on the other. Dr Löwenstein’s book opens up the complexities of that relationship to the ordinary reader.

And so the crucial issues are protecting soils, mitigating climate change, adopting diets and lifestyles adjusted to the capacities of the global ecosystem, and enacting equitable policies for access to food resources.

Felix zu Löwenstein is not ‘holier than thou’; he never preaches. He himself was an industrial (or as he says ‘conventional’ ) farmer for many years! Rather, his style, though serious, is self-deprecatory, often humorous. The references are all there for the experts, but the book is addressed to a lay audience. We should eat less meat, use fewer scissors (to cut open plastic bags) and more knives (to slice vegetables!) …and waste less. Who needs to change? You and me.

Some ‘farmer’!

Dr. Bernadette Tobin
Food Crash: why organic is the only way forward
By Felix Löwenstein
Acres, 2024. ISBN 978-0-911311-12-9

The post Bioethics Outlook – What makes us sick makes other people hungry! appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

The use of biostimulants in agriculture has gained significant traction due to their potential to enhance yield, improve soil health and reduce dependency on chemical fertilizers. Published research has shown that live green algae, uniquely Chlorella vulgaris, to be a particularly effective biostimulant having a significant impact on soil microbial activity, plant growth and overall farm ROI.

Chlorella vulgaris are living green algae microscopic, freshwater organisms capable of surviving in soil. Living biology is what sets this form of biostimulant apart from all others because it stimulates the biology that is already in the soil. Extensive research and field trials have proven that this is of paramount importance in the potency and efficacy of biologicals for significant boosting of soil organic matter and microbial biomass, enabling every know benefit attributable to biostimulants to be realized.

• Enhanced plant growth and yield across various crops

• Reduced dependence on chemical fertilizers (NPK)

• Improved soil fertility, organic matter and microbial mass

• Increased leaf chlorophyll content, which translates into increased photosynthetic capacity

• Enhanced plant resistance to abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity

• Potential increased resistance to plant pathogens due to improved plant vigor

REDUCING THE NEED FOR SYNTHETIC FERTILIZER

One of the most important benefits of living green algae is that it can be used to lower synthetic nitrogen inputs. “Where will the nitrogen come from you ask?” The answer is that living green algae amplifies nature’s process of extracting nitrogen from the air and converting it into ammonium compounds in the soil. One gram of healthy soil contains some 10 billion bacteria, fungi and other organisms that work together to make this conversion — and live green algae accelerate this process known as nitrogen fixation.

In addition, rhizospheric bacteria produce weak acids that solubilize soil-bound phosphorus, making it available to roots.

This especially happens when these bacteria are stimulated by Chlorella vulgaris. Soil testing after the first application has even demonstrated excess nitrogen after grazing and harvesting — nitrogen that is available for the next season. This means ranchers can reduce their use of synthetic NPK fertilizers to produce quality, grass, hay and alfalfa. And because it is applied at much lower rates and at a much lower cost than synthetic fertilizer, ranchers can reduce their input costs while improving the health of their soil and the nutritional content of their forage. EnSoil Algae™ treated pasture fields have been proven to increase cattle conception rates and decrease the need for mineral supplements.

Bryan Mussard, Reminisce Angus Ranch

A BREAKTHROUGH IN LIVING BIOSTIMULANT TECHNOLOGY

Historically, the challenge of maintaining live algae viability during storage and transport has hindered their widespread use. Green algae, like most plants, are usually dependent on photosynthesis to maintain life; they die when placed in dark storage.

Living organisms feed themselves in one of two ways: either by producing their own food via photosynthesis — like green plants and algae — or by finding it outside of themselves, like animals and bacteria. Those that photosynthesize are called autotrophs (auto = self, troph = feeding), while those that scavenge or hunt for food are called heterotrophs (hetero = other). And there is a third category known as mixotrophic, an organism which can switch between autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism.

Scientists with EnSoil Algae™ have now introduced mixotrophic Chlorella vulgaris which can photosynthesize in light and consume organic material in darkness, allowing them to remain viable during transport and for over a year in dark storage. This patent-pending technology doesn’t use any commercial or laboratory gene-altering techniques — i.e., it doesn’t rely on genetic modification as the heterotrophic pathway is already present in green algae. EnSoil Algae™ technology activates that pathway to produce mixotrophic chlorella.

Biostimulants like Cholera vulgaris make sense because they can lead to significant agronomic and economic outcomes that deliver a better return on investment than synthetic fertilizer. To learn more, watch what some Montana ranchers have experienced. EnSoil Algae™ is a product of Enlightened Soil Corp, a South Carolina public benefit corporation. ensoilalgae com.

The post Soil Biodiversity and Thriving Livestock appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

We have innovated our farming protocols tremendously in the last century, going from horse plowing to tractor implements, natural manure to chemically made fertilizer, and hand harvesting to combine production. There’s always something new to bring to the farming industry, creating an easier, more profitable, and higher-yielding crop. 

In 2023, we spent over $20 billion on fertilizer. While conventional nitrogen helps promote growth in the plant, it is also killing the soil microbiome. Conventional fertilizer chokes out all the beneficial bacteria in the dirt that help the plant maintain good health. 

Is there an alternative?

Tom Dykstra, Ph.D., notes that “salt-based NPK fertilizers are designed to introduce nutrients into plants quickly and unnaturally. These nutrients, especially nitrogen, are always applied in excess and rely in no small part on the high electrical conductivity of the fertilizer in order to bypass natural root uptake mechanisms. What is often created is a plant that becomes a ‘drug addict’—dependent on the next dose and less able to fend for itself. Worse, the salts that bond with the nutrients are eventually released into the soil, thus compromising microbial health.” 

What if we could fertilize our crops with just air and water and raise the Brix to promote good plant health? 

“Green lightning produces its nitrogen predominantly as nitrates through a plasma process akin to the action of lightning in our atmosphere,” Dykstra says. “It creates a more pure form of nitrogen that is not attached to any salt and so lacks the undesirable side effects of a standard high-salt NPK fertilizer. It is intentionally designed to work slower but more naturally and more completely with other plant nutrients that can be included in each Green Lightning application or that may already be contained in the soil.” 

Green Lightning is now giving you the ability to produce nitrogen on your own farm using a machine that takes only air, water, and electricity. The end product from the machine can replace traditional nitrogen and is non-toxic with zero salts. The machine emulates a lightning storm, which causes the product to contain a percentage of nitrate and natural energy, which feeds the plant directly, as opposed to first having to be converted in the soil, then turned to nitrate. Green Lightning works like nature does when a lightning storm comes through. The machine can cut out up to 99% of your annual nitrogen cost. Our goal is to make farmers more profitable, productive, and successful while improving crop health as well as soil and water quality. 

Have you ever dreamed of having low input costs, excellent crop yields, and healthier ground? What about producing your own fertilizer from the air? Contact us at info@greenlightning.ag or visit greenlightning.ag  to place your order. 

The post Air + Water = Nitrogen for plants? appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

Amino acids and zinc are both essential components for the growth and development of almond trees. Amino acids are organic compounds that play a crucial role in several physiological processes within almond trees, including photosynthesis, respiration, and cell division. They also enhance nutrient uptake, improve plant growth, and enhance overall tree health. When amino acids are complexed with zinc, they can form a chelated compound, which can be more easily absorbed by almonds.

Importance of Zinc Amino Acids

Zinc (Zn)is a micronutrient that is essential for several enzymatic processes within almonds. Zn is required for the synthesis of growth regulators, such as auxins, which promote cell division and elongation. It’s also necessary to produce chlorophyll, which is essential for photosynthesis. Zn is also involved in the formation of proteins and carbohydrates, which are crucial for plant growth and development.

The combination of Zn and amino acids in BRANDT Organiplex 6% Zn can be highly beneficial for almond production. The product is designed to be easily absorbed by the trees and can improve overall health, growth, and yield. Additionally, BRANDT Organiplex 6% Zn is OMRI Listed.

Get the most out of your almond trees with BRANDT Organiplex 6% Zn. A new sustainable foliar nutritional proven to perform as well as conventional. Click the link below to learn more about BRANDT Organiplex 6% Zn.

URL: https://brandt.co/lines/brandt-organiplex/

The post Amino Acids & Zinc: The Key to Thriving Almond Trees appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

Organic farmers face challenges to provide essential micronutrients to their crops efficiently which are vital for plant health. However, there are tools available to help face this challenge.

One of the tools available to growers is the use of granular micronutrients for organic crop production.  These granular micronutrients can be applied to fields to help reduce crop stresses and prevent nutrient deficiencies. Micronutrients such as iron, manganese, copper, boron, and humic acid play key roles in impacting plant health.

Micronutrient Benefits

Incorporating granular micronutrients into organic crop production improves soil fertility, increases nutrient uptake, and leads to higher yields at harvest. Here are a few ways that micronutrients play a key role in the crop production process.

• Improved soil fertility: Micronutrients help to correct nutrient deficiencies in the soil and alleviate plant stress by increasing nutrient availability in the soil for plant uptake, improving overall plant health.
• Increased nutrient uptake ability: Granular micronutrients can increase a crop’s nutrient uptake ability. Boron is a micronutrient that helps with the uptake of calcium and without sufficient calcium uptake and movement within a plant, symptoms of calcium deficiency such as cell wall abnormalities and poor structural development can appear.
• Higher yields at harvest: Providing the soil and plants with proper nutrition throughout the growing season helps to reduce stress on plants and allows for crops to focus energy on grain fill or fruit production, leading to higher yields.

Value of Humic Acid

Humic acid is an important component of soil and plant health, especially for organic crop production. Humic acid aids in nutrient availability for the crop and delivery of nutrients to plants from the soil.

Humic acid chelates nutrients in the soil such as iron, copper, zinc, and manganese. Chelates work by putting a protective “claw” around the nutrient, allowing it to be brought into the plant without risk of tie-up.

Humic Acids and Micronutrients Work Together

Humic acid and micronutrients make a major impact on soil and plant health individually. However, when they are used together, they create an even bigger impact on your crops. Humic acid and Micronutrients play a very vital role in proper plant nutrition here are just a couple of those benefits.

• Reduce nutrient loss: Humic acid holds onto micronutrients in the soil and keeps them available in the soil until the plant takes them up. This reduces the loss of nutrients through leeching, helping to mitigate nutrient deficiencies and provide nutrition throughout the growing season.
• Improve stress tolerance: With the help of humic acid, micronutrients are more available to the crop throughout the growing season and help crops tolerate stress.
• Enhance overall plant health: With the increased nutrient availability to crops with the use of humic acid this leads to healthier and more resilient crops that will have higher yields and better return on investment at the end of the growing season.

The Andersons Granular Products

The Andersons offer MicroMark DG Humic, an OMRI-Listed granular micronutrient package that is created to optimize plant health and maximize yields at harvest.  MicroMark DG Humic can be used for all crops including organic row and organic specialty crops.

If you have any questions about the MicroMark DG products, please fill out our contact form and our sales team will reach out to you directly.

The post Micronutrients Role in Organic Cropping – EcoFarming Daily appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

With the growing season nearing harvest, it is time to think about fall fertilizer applications, particularly for pH and liming needs. The first step is to take a thorough soil test to measure values of major nutrients (NPK), cations (calcium, magnesium, potassium, hydrogen, and sodium), and micronutrients. Depending on the soil test results, fall is an ideal time for the application of lime or gypsum as these mined sources break down in the soil over the winter to become readily available to the growing crop the following season.

SOIL PH, LIME, AND GYPSUM 101 

Soil pH is the measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions in the soil. The soil pH affects the crop from planting to harvest because it determines the availability of nutrients through chemistry and microbial processes.

Figure 1 shows how pH can influence nutrient uptake versus tie-up. Maintaining a soil pH between 5.8 and 6.8 is ideal, where nutrients are most available. It is best practice to continually maintain soil pH, rather than wait for an imbalance to occur.

Lime delivers calcium and/or magnesium to the soil and raises pH. Nitrogen fertilizers acidify soil (lower pH), and if pH is low, lime will need to be applied. The issue with many ag limestone products is that they take time (usually two years) to significantly raise a pH deficiency into an optimal range.

Adjustment of soil pH in-season is possible when using a pelletized limestone product. If soils are limed regularly, this will counteract the acidifying effect of nitrogen applications, and pH should never get too low.

Gypsum contains calcium and sulfur and is pH neutral. Gypsum also offers many benefits for improving soil structure in tight, compacted, or high-clay soils. The sulfur in gypsum attaches to magnesium cations that strongly bind soil particles closely together. The sulfur then flushes magnesium through the soil profile, helping to loosen soil. Over time, soil pore space is increased, allowing for greater water and air infiltration within the soil profile.

WHAT’S THE GYPSUM BUZZ? 

Gypsum is a hot topic in agriculture these days. It is important to understand the differences between lime and gypsum, and even though gypsum is pricier than lime, gypsum should be applied at times when it is more appropriate. Unlike lime, gypsum provides needed sulfur to the soil. As a result of the Clean Air Act in 1963, crops do not receive sulfur in the form of acid rain because the rain is no longer acidic. Sulfur is an anion that is leachable in the soil profile, so it is up to growers to monitor sulfur levels and supplement as needed.

BENEFITS OF HUMIC ACID 

The original source of humic substances comes from organic matter. Humic acid’s main benefit is to provide carbon to the cropping system. Just like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, carbon can be a limiting nutrient and should be effectively managed. Carbon is the foundation for all soil physical, chemical, and biological processes on Earth. Carbon can increase soil’s water-holding capacity, improving both soil structure and porosity for optimal water drainage and aeration.

The Andersons Pelletize Products 

The Andersons pelletized lime and gypsum products are a marriage of important attributes. You get high-quality, mined calcium and either magnesium or sulfur, depending on the product, in a granule form that is user-friendly and spreads easily.

It is important to be thinking ahead to the next growing season now. Planning will put you in the most prepared position when it comes to the application of soil amendments to your fields.  NutraSoft OP,  NutraLime OP, and Black Gypsum DG offer many soil health benefits, as well as critical nutrients.

The post Using Lime & Gypsum in Organic Crop Production Guide appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

Sponsored By: Spacesaver

While a multi-acre plot spanning the countryside is what comes to mind when most hear of a farming operation, some growers do not have access to the amount of real estate necessary to support this functionality. For these individuals, an efficient and productive alternative is available – controlled environment agriculture. 

Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) includes indoor agriculture and vertical farming practices that allow for a technology-based approach to cultivation. By optimizing the available space within an indoor grow facility through efficient storage and operational systems, users can maximize their yield and their investment in the real estate and systems involved.  

What This Approach Entails 

Unlike outdoor operations whose useable space sprawls out on the horizontal plane, indoor grow facilities focus on available space on a vertical axis. To help create an optimal indoor grow environment, durable and versatile vertical racking and shelving are used to provide long-term support for plants, pots, and supplies. Unlike traditional racking, vertical racking is designed for strength and ultimate flexibility by having welded horizontal bracing instead of diagonal bracing. This feature allows for other horticulture accessories such as lighting, HVAC, and irrigation to be easily integrated within the system.  

Furthermore, vertical racking and shelving offer sturdy support in static applications, as well as in mobile applications through integration with high-density mobile shelving (HDMS) systems. Utilizing mobile shelving, growers can reduce wasted aisle space and free up more of their footprint for increased access and yield. Vertical racking can be used as standalone shelving or mobilized on carriages for maximum space efficiency. The system was designed to accommodate indoor agriculture needs where Standard and Knock Down pallet racking do not meet the exact customer needs or space requirements. 

As the intent of employing vertical farming solutions is to maximize available vertical space, users will require a safe and effective method to reach plants residing on the second tier of the system or higher. There are many potential options to accomplish this feat – rolling ladder, scissors lift, etc. – with some being more efficient and secure than others. However, by employing a solution like Spacesaver’s GROW Crosswalk accessory, users have access to a raised working station that securely integrates with new and existing racking and can be utilized during all stages of indoor cultivation. Unlike a ladder or lift, the GROW Crosswalk remains secured in place for the length of the aisle while you and your colleagues work.  

Summary 

Even though your surroundings may not be teeming with lush farmland, there are still viable options for growing a plentiful harvest. By utilizing controlled environment agriculture solutions like those provided by Spacesaver Corporation, you can optimize your indoor grow facility’s available vertical space, maximize your yield, and boost your bottom line.  

Check out the following link to learn more about Spacesaver’s line of indoor agriculture solutions and how the can help you grow more in less space. https://www.spacesaver.com/products/vertical-grow-racks/ 

The post Providing An Inside Track to Controlled Environment Agriculture appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

Farms, ranches, and vineyards everywhere are opening their gates, barn doors and fences, issuing a heartfelt invitation to sample the abundant bounty and natural beauty found in the state’s growing adventure – Agritourism.

Agritourism is where agriculture and tourism meet to provide you with amazing entertainment and educational experiences, whether it be a you-pick operation, a crop maze, a working dairy or a barn wedding venue, farmers, and ranchers turn their land into a destination and open their doors to the public to share the down on the farm experience.

Our member farms host you-pick events for fruits, vegetables, and flowers. There are more benefits to visiting a Florida you-pick farm than just collecting fruits and veggies. By harvesting fresh items yourself and eating them soon after, you can enjoy produce at its most nutritious and delicious. you-pick farms also get you outdoors in nature while you benefit farmers who get to market their crops directly to you.

Take Blue Sky Farm for example…. A small-scale you-pick farm in north Florida.

It was established in 2012 with 350 blueberry rabbit-eye variety bushes occupying approximately one acre of a six-acre site.  When it changed hands in 2020, the new owners acquired the land, a small house, the bushes, 200 email addresses of established customers, a website, Facebook page, a reputation, and the farm name – Blue Sky Farm.  They also acquired a two-month long blueberry you-pick season of June and July.

During those first early spring months waiting for blueberries to bloom and show fruit, the new owners decided to add an additional crop – flowers!  Their first season of you-pick included both blueberries and some warm season easy-to-grow flowers.  The dedicated blueberry pickers showed up and a few new customers who sought flowers showed up too.  Interested in flowers as a season extender, the operators looked to expand the flower crop and the customer base.

In two short seasons, the customer base expanded beyond you-pickers, to include florists, wholesalers, DIY consumers, flower lovers, and gardeners. The farm also added workshops, bouquet subscriptions, and flower seedlings to their offerings.

More recently, a truck that is half flower display and half tap dispensary has allowed the farm to expand into event rentals that showcase the farm’s flower product and provide year-round income.

Ever after Farms started as a commercial blueberry farm in the late spring of 2017 in Brevard County. The market was such that it was not a profitable endeavor and they were losing money.

That fall, the owners decided that the gorgeous oak tree on the property would make a beautiful wedding spot. Word spread and this quickly grew the 17-acre farm into a blueberry farm and wedding venue.

Ever After Farms decided to sell their blueberries directly to consumers through a you-pick model. They worked on growing their business and now have seven farms most of which sell their products direct to consumers and operate as wedding and event venues. They took one farm that was losing money and now have seven profitable farm operations.

Ever After Farms feels that their agritourism operations have allowed them to remain sustainable for generations to come. Their goal is that their relationship with their customers will continue to grow like their business has.

From farm tours and farm weddings to goat yoga and educational workshops, these farms are a nice break from your weekly routine.

This July, the Florida Agritourism Association is excited to host our very first conference and farm tour July 9-11 in Gainesville, Florida. We invite you to participate if you are currently offering agritourism activities or if you are interested in learning more about agritourism.

The conference includes workshops, networking opportunities, and a farm tour to help you discover new income opportunities for your farm! We are welcoming sponsorships and exhibitors as well.

Visitors are planning stops at farms during their stays and are creating memories that will last a lifetime. “Agritourism, one of the state’s fast-growing new business ventures, allows small farms to survive and thrive. Florida agritourism is the ultimate field trip where Floridians and visitors to our state want to return to their rural roots and experience the joys and benefits of farm life.” – Lena Juarez, Executive Director, Florida Agritourism Association

We hope that you will be able to join us for this exciting, educational conference.

Please find more information on our conference website www.FATAconference.com. And, to learn more about our association, visit www.visitfloridafarms.org. We also have a free mobile app where visitors can learn about our members and find events that are happening nearby. Go to the app store on your iPhone or Android device to download our app!

The post From Farm to Fun: Discover The Natural Beauty of Agritourism appeared first on EcoFarming Daily.

By Baylen Linnekin

On an icy Thursday night this past February, more than 100 local residents gathered at a crowded town hall meeting in Dexter, Michigan, to discuss how to tackle a seeming intractable problem that’s long vexed the local farming community: the lack of government-inspected livestock slaughter and processing facilities in the area.

Washtenaw County, which includes Dexter, lies an hour west of Detroit and is home to more than 300,000 people. Its largest city and county seat, Ann Arbor, is home to the University of Michigan. Despite its population and location, local farmers who want to have their livestock slaughtered and processed for sale (turned into steaks, sausages, deli meat, lard, meat pies, and other edible portions) still must truck their animals outside the county to do so.

“While [our] farmers pour their heart and energy into raising their animals, sometimes for the slimmest of margins, they face four-hour round-trip drives and [processors] who know them as just another name on a waitlist,” a local farmer explained to fellow attendees, as reported in a recent article on mlive.com (“The Movement for More Local Meat in Washtenaw County Grows”).

Access to local slaughter and processing facilities benefits local farmers and consumers and strengthens local economies. It has other benefits, too. Processing livestock locally eliminates the stress and discomfort livestock face during a long drive to far-off facilities. Reducing transit miles means farmers burn less fossil fuel.

“[A] local meat system requires a nearby meat processing facility,” local poultry processor Wendy Banka told the Sun Times News. “Without a local meat processing facility, we can’t have local meat. It’s as simple as that.”

The System

Given both the obvious problem and the benefits and demand for locally raised meat, having locally raised livestock slaughtered locally for sale by local grocers and restaurants and others seems a logical choice. But, thanks to federal regulations, getting a small processing plant off the ground is a key hurdle. Operating one can be an even bigger challenge.

The COVID-19 pandemic created massive supply-chain issues at the nation’s largest meat plants and grocers, which spurred many consumers to buy meat from smaller, local processors and the local farmers and ranchers they serve. Many small plants around the country sought to ramp up their capacity to help meet suddenly exploding consumer demand for their products. While COVID both exposed and exacerbated the shortcomings in the nation’s federal meat-inspection scheme — and the laws and regulations that uphold that system — these problems, like those in Washtenaw County, have existed for generations.

“The lack of inspected slaughterhouses in many areas of the country is one of the biggest problems for small-scale livestock farmers — and, as a result, one of the biggest barriers to the availability of local, sustainably raised meat, despite strong consumer demand for such meat,” says Judith McGeary, a Texas rancher and attorney who leads the nonprofit Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA).

The steep decline in the number of such plants has taken place over the past few decades, during which time the United States has lost thousands of smaller processing plants, many in rural America. While the cause appears at first glance to be consolidation — thousands of small plants replaced by hundreds of giant ones — that consolidation is largely a function of federal laws and regulations skewed to favor those large processors.

Though lawmakers in Washington, D.C. are increasingly recognizing the need for real reforms of the federal meat inspection system, the systemic “reform” many prefer is to bring more small processing plants under federal inspection. Instead of ramping up capacity, some fear more federal involvement in small plants could instead mean fewer small processors. That raises fears federal reforms could simply result in more regulations for small processors without offering any attendant benefits for them, their farmer and rancher customers, or American consumers. The experiences of many small processors, including those detailed in this article, reveal deep flaws in a slaughter-and-processing regulatory system that is stacked against them by design and effect.

While some exceptions exist, most farmers and ranchers who want to sell meat commercially in the United States must have their livestock slaughtered in an approved facility inspected by the USDA’s Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS) or an equivalent state-inspected facility. That’s largely true whether a farmer or rancher wants to sell their meat directly to consumers, to groceries and restaurants, or both. To be sold commercially, meat from livestock slaughtered in those facilities also must be processed in an FSIS-inspected processing plant or state equivalent. The term “processing” may refer to anything from minimal processing (such as cutting up animals into saleable, wrapped portions) to more labor-intensive activities (such as grinding, seasoning, cooking or curing).

Though federal law requires both slaughterhouses and processing plants to be inspected every day they operate, inspection requirements are far more pervasive for slaughter facilities than for processors. The law requires FSIS inspectors to be present at all times when animals are being slaughtered. They’re no mere observers. In fact, inspectors are required to visually examine every animal — both before and after slaughter — that comes to a facility. FSIS inspectors are only required to be present at processing plants — which turn carcasses and animal parts into everything from raw bacon to cured lamb jerky to canned spaghetti and meatballs — on a daily basis. In other words, while a slaughter plant of any size must have at least one FSIS inspector present whenever it’s slaughtering, by contrast, FSIS inspectors are usually assigned to visit several processors as part of a daily circuit.

FSIS inspectors who find a plant of any size to be in violation of one or more agency regulations typically address the matter by issuing a Noncompliance Record (NR). “An NR notifies the establishment that there is a noncompliance and that they should take action to remedy the situation and prevent its recurrence,” FSIS explains.

FSIS defines “very small” slaughter facilities as those having fewer than 10 employees or less than $2.5 million in annual sales, and “small” plants as ones with anywhere from 10 to 499 employees. Even the largest plants described in this article meet the definition of “small” or “very small” plants. For example, the small White Oak Pastures red-meat processing plant in rural Georgia, owned by regenerative farming and grass-fed beef pioneer Will Harris, has about 40 employees.

In comparison to most other facilities described in this article, Harris’s plant is big. But “big” is relative. “To walk through a very small, 5,000 square foot plant may take less than a minute,” a recent study by the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network (NMPAN) details. “A plant this size may process eight to ten cattle per day.” But even that “very small” example is larger than some of the plants detailed in this article. One such plant owner, Jane Levan, operated a facility of around 1,200 square feet.

Contrast those numbers with data on the nation’s largest processors — the so-called “Big Four” of JBS, Tyson, Cargill and Marfrig — each of which owns dozens of plants employing tens of thousands of workers. “On the opposite extreme is an 850,000 square foot plant that may process 5,600 cattle per day and could take you several hours to walk through,” the recent NMPAN report details. These and other giant plants — many of which were forced by COVID outbreaks to shut their doors temporarily during the early peaks of the pandemic in 2020 — supply roughly 80 percent of the nation’s beef, along with similarly high percentages of its pork and chicken.

Prior to operating as a USDA-inspected processor, a facility owner of any size must apply to FSIS for a Grant of Inspection (GOI). A plant must also develop written sanitation procedures and create what’s known as a HACCP plan. The HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) plan requirement means every slaughter and processing facility must identify, control and mitigate against potential biological, chemical and physical food-safety hazards the plant determines may arise in their plant. After a plant has conducted the hazard analysis and identified critical control points, it must establish the following: limits for each control point, monitoring procedures, corrective actions and verification and recordkeeping procedures.

If FSIS approves a GOI, it provides a facility with a conditional grant of inspection of up to 90 days and assigns one or more FSIS inspectors to the facility. Only then may federally inspected meat from the plant be sold to consumers, grocers, restaurants, caterers and others. But the conditional grant also requires the facility to validate its HACCP plan, which means a slaughter or processing plant must ensure “everything you’ve implemented so far in your food safety plan is correct and leads to producing safe food.”

The Plight of Small Processors

In 2019, Jacob Wingebach, owner of Sandhills Beef Company, a very small custom-exempt (not subject to regular inspection) meat-processing plant in rural Mullen, Nebraska, applied for a GOI. Wingebach, a former government nuclear engineer and seasoned nuclear regulator, wanted to grow his business and sell meat commercially. But the USDA rejected his application. Wingebach and the expert he’d hired to help him complete it, Dr. Michael Fisher, a former Public Health Veterinarian with FSIS, believed the reasons the agency had rejected Sandhills’ application were arbitrary and did not comply with federal law. (Sandhills closed in 2022. Wingebach says the USDA’s denial of his GOI played a role in the closing.)

Fisher, a no-nonsense, retired Army colonel who spent nearly three decades working in FSIS’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) and Office of Policy and Program Development (OPPD), started out with the agency in 1985, serving as a veterinary medical officer in a slaughterhouse. Years later he was part of the group that implemented the agency’s HACCP system. Since retiring from FSIS in 2014, Fisher’s been a leading critic of the agency.

As Fisher explains, FSIS wanted Sandhills to provide, as part of its GOI application, information that is ultimately required by regulation — down the road — but is not required as part of the application process. Fisher helpfully compares the GOI to a driver’s license — a government certificate that allows a person to drive a motor vehicle — but notes it’s wholly separate from other requirements such as vehicle inspection. But Fisher, by way of analogy, says FSIS basically added a vehicle inspection requirement to Sandhills’ driver’s license application. This, Fisher says, means FSIS had added requirements to his application process, beyond what the law requires or allows.

Some argue that FSIS’s denial of Wingebach’s GOI application has nothing to do with food safety or public health.

“I think Jacob Wingebach’s [story] is a glaring example of how awful FSIS is and how they work so hard to discriminate and retaliate against the small plants,” says Mike Callicrate, a nationally renowned rancher and FSIS-inspected processor.

Critics argue FSIS’s rejection of Wingebach’s application is largely the result of the agency’s inability or unwillingness to hire and assign sufficient numbers of inspectors to small, rural meat plants across the country.

“If you have to have an inspector on-site at all times during slaughtering and processing, then you are entirely at the mercy of the agency’s staffing decisions,” says McGeary.

“As far as I’m concerned, when it comes to Jacob, that’s it in a nutshell,” says Dr. Fisher.

Jane Levan, who owned Dewberry Hills Farms in rural Lexington, Texas, says the agency seemed unwilling at first to provide inspection services. “The frontline inspector considered us too remote,” Levan says, while noting FSIS is required to provide inspection staff at an approved plant regardless of the number of hours of inspection work that plant requires each week. “She felt it would be difficult to staff us because of our location — we’re not close to a large city — and she strongly implied USDA wouldn’t be willing to staff us unless we had 40 hours per week of work.”

Though FSIS classifies dozens of locations around the country as “difficult to staff,” current and former agency officials say these staffing challenges don’t impact the agency’s ability to provide inspection services to small plants. An FSIS spokesperson denies the agency has ever delayed or denied approving a GOI because it could not hire and place an inspector at a particular facility.

Though obtaining a GOI allows a processor to get their business up and running, many small plants that are approved to operate and do receive FSIS inspection run into countless hurdles and roadblocks once their plants are operational. Processors share troubling tales of FSIS inspectors who they say have enforced phantom regulations, failed to put costly directives in writing and seemingly retaliated against processors for exercising their rights to appeal written complaints.

Jane Levan’s Dewberry Hills Farm, which obtained FSIS inspection (but, like Sandhills, closed last year), says the same frontline inspector who visited her plant before she obtained her GOI also pushed her to swap out the stainless-steel tables she’d use to process poultry. Levan says the inspector also told her she’d need to install an air blower to keep flies out of her plant. Levan says the blower wasn’t effective. She’d have preferred to place large fans outside the plant, which would have been more effective and cost far less money than the air blower, which cost around $4,500 to purchase and install. It turns out these changes were not required by any FSIS regulations.

“I know that sounds very trivial, but that’s [money] we didn’t have to spend,” Levan says. “That’s peanuts for a huge plant. But it’s a huge obstacle for a small plant like ours trying to get off the ground.”

Levan’s travails would sound familiar to John Edwards. His business, Trackside Butcher Shoppe in rural Campbellsburg, Kentucky, slaughters and processes around 65 cattle, 25 hogs, and 5-10 lamb each week. Its 25 employees and one FSIS inspector serve more than 1,500 farmers annually. While many of those farmers live in and around Campbellsburg, some travel more than two hours to Trackside.

Edwards says that, beginning in 2016, a “rogue” FSIS inspector who “was bound and determined to make my life miserable” did just that. Among other issues, Edwards cites the inspector’s constant barrage of alleged violations and her typically costly proposed solutions to those alleged violations. Edwards says he learned only later that neither his purported violations nor the inspector’s proposed remedies were grounded in FSIS regulations.

“She’d come to me and tell me there was an issue, and I’d try to fix it,” Edwards says. “Only later, I learned there was no regulation she was enforcing.” For example, Edwards says the inspector told him that Trackside’s plant lighting was insufficient. “So we upgraded it,” he says. “But that still wasn’t good enough. She’d say, ‘You need more lighting on this floor.’ It still wasn’t good enough. It was things like this that were a constant battle.”

At the time, Edwards (like the inspector) was relatively inexperienced with FSIS regulations. Since she was the person paid to know and enforce the rules, Edwards says he took the inspector at her word. Only as he sought advice from other processors and experts did Edwards learn some of the rules she was enforcing — including her repeated verbal requests to improve plant lighting — weren’t based on any regulations.

Edwards says the problematic inspector was eventually reassigned and that he’s grateful for her replacement, an FSIS inspector who Edwards describes as reasonable and easy to talk to.

Challenging the System

The phantom regulations FSIS inspectors told Levan, Edwards and others to follow are hardly unprecedented. In 2019, a Montana Standard investigation detailed how one inspector, Jeffrey Legg, had for years enforced a host of regulations that did not exist, costing small processors in the state untold money and causing countless headaches.

While Levan and Edwards needlessly spent thousands of dollars to follow errant directives they received, others have pushed back. But they’ve found that doing so — like meat processing itself — is not for the faint of heart.

Mike Smucker is president of Smucker’s Meats in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, located near the state capital in Harrisburg. The company, which has 45 employees, serves 200-300 farmers who market their own beef, bison and pork, many of them directly to the consumer. The company slaughters and processes more than 200 animals each month. Some farmers bring livestock to Smucker’s from as far away as New York State and Virginia.

While Smucker says nearly all of the in-plant FSIS inspection personnel have been excellent, he’s still had his share of problems with the agency. FSIS inspectors appeared sometimes to issue new NRs in retaliation for his having appealed prior NRs. Though he couldn’t prove the agency’s actions were retaliation for his appeals, Smucker says it sure felt that way.

Levan, who learned after her early experiences to push back on FSIS directives that seemed unaligned with FSIS regulations, shares a similar tale. “If I appealed any of the NRs” her company received, Levan says, “or I pushed back at all, the frontline supervisor would come into our plant and look through our HACCP plan to find things we could be written up on.” In other words, exercising one’s rights to dispute an NR can beget more NRs.

Greg Gunthorp of Gunthorp Farms in LaGrange, Indiana, a mid-sized rancher and processor who’s a leading voice among his peers in the industry, says the lesson in Smucker’s case and others is that “if you push back, it’ll get worse first, before it gets better.… If you push back, USDA will make it seem like you’re not for animal welfare or food safety,” he says. “The only thing that scares them is media and congressmen. That’s it. There’s no checks and balances other than that.”

As Dr. Fisher explains, FSIS inspectors at very small plants in rural America often receive little or no oversight from their supervisors. “Inspectors assigned to small and very small establishments are like free agents,” Fisher says. “They can do whatever they want, as long as they do not create controversy or problems for FSIS management.”

“When I was doing my due diligence whether or not to build a plant, I spent a lot of time in other peoples’ plants,” says Will Harris. “And I saw a dynamic that troubled me.” He compares some of the inspectors he saw in those other plants to the proverbial “100-pound weakling with a nuclear device: they can’t beat anybody up, but they can blow it all up.”

That’s different than in a larger plant, where the presence of and oversight from peers can prove a moderating influence. “The thing that’s really hard for microprocessors like us,” Levan says, is that “in a big plant, inspectors have peers who can monitor and check their behavior. But out here an inspector can act like this is his petty kingdom.”

“I don’t know that I would wish USDA inspection on my worst enemies,” says Gunthorp, who estimates 80 percent of USDA staff are good, 10 percent are lazy, and 10 percent are crazy. “And they have no means whatsoever to deal with the lazies or the crazies.”

The key lesson learned by processors who’ve lived through these sorts of tensions with FSIS is that the only sure way to distinguish between an inspector’s whims and potential violations of FSIS regulations is to demand that an inspector document complaints. Levan, for example, says she learned the “magic words” processors must use when an inspector has a complaint: first, “show me the regulation”; second, “put it in writing.”

Even in the face of these obstacles and challenges, plenty of people — like those who braved icy roads in Dexter, Michigan, in February — are still interested in opening small, inspected meat-processing plants. Demand for those services among farmers and ranchers is strong. Consumer demand is, too. But FSIS’s overly burdensome regulation of small processors continues to hamper small-scale meat processors, all while ensuring their larger competitors thrive.

Baylen Linnekin is an attorney, an expert in agricultural and food regulations, and a board member at the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. He is the author of Biting the Hands that Feed Us: How Fewer, Smarter Laws Would Make Our Food System More Sustainable.

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