Carbon Copy

perfectly ripe is perfectly wrong

It's all very well buying organic, but when I insist that my Woolworths veggies must be unblemished works of perfection, things have gone too far. My demands are already making life hard for commercial farmers, but the quest for the perfect carrot pushes small farmers completely out of the picture.

According to an article in today's Cape Argus [requires subscription], small farmers can't compete with large commercial operations in supplying stores like Woolworths, which stipulate cold chain requirements that require huge capital outlays, ostensibly to bring me "perfectly ripe" food. But really, the need to keep food in perfectly moderated conditions across the supply chain is because of the time and distance required for transport, and my insistence on ignoring seasonal variations in supply. And the transport distance is increased partly because Woolworths uses a central distribution warehouse, adding a step in the supply chain, and partly because large commercial farmers - in trying to meet the retailer's exacting standards - must have several farms so that they can pick from the right crop at the right time.

Australian wine farmers also add transport distance in the search for the perfect grape. The modern Australian wine industry (I was once told during a wine tasting at a South African estate) tries to maintain consistent taste from year to year by pulling in grapes from all over the country, and mixing them to create the desired blend.

I don't know when it stopped being OK to have an overripe apple or wine that changed from one harvest to the next, but this is bananas. In order to make my life sanitized and Woolworth's job easier, we are adding to carbon emissions and bruising small-scale agriculture. Stop the madness!

Update on 20 May 2008:

Twenty billion dollars is the value of perishable goods that actually do perish before they reach the consumer in the US. That's around 10% of the nation's total, mostly going to waste. According to an article in the 17 May edition of the Economist, part of the reason is the distances the food has to travel, but another significant reason is the huge displays and wide selection of produce in the stores. Greater choice means more products on the shelves that don't sell quickly. The article mentions the case of retail chain Stop and Shop, which reduced displays of fresh produce by a fifth, reducing spoilage (or 'shrink') by a third.

Now, it's difficult to pin down exactly what is meant by food that has 'gone off'. A large amount of 'off' food is perfectly edible, and can be day-old baked goods or fruit that is slightly bruised. But if it can't be sold, it doesn't have to be dumped. In North America, some of this gets distributed to an extensive network of food banks that give it to needy families. My aunt used to volunteer at a food bank in Ontario, and there were so many 'stale' donuts sometimes that they didn't all get taken by the hungry masses, so we used to eat them ourselves.

My point is that spoiled food is often just food that doesn't meet our increasingly picky tastes, and stores like Woolworths should encourage the establishment of a wider network of food banks in South Africa. There are small groups, and some individuals collecting from stores for soup kitchens, but I don't see why we couldn't have more coordinated efforts to make better use of 'spoiled' food.

biofuel debate goes deeper than food vs fuel

The March 14 edition of Financial Mail reports on the use of jatropha as a biofuel feedstock as an alternative to food crops. The food-versus-fuel debate is raging like a wildfire on the African veld, and the South African government responded to local critics by banning the use of maize for biofuels. Given that maize arguably produces no more energy than goes into its production, that was probably a wise decision. But the issues go deeper.

While jatropha has high oil content, creates jobs, grows on wasteland that is unsuitable for many food crops, requires little or no water, and does not directly threaten food security, there is another concern. The Department of Agriculture considers the plant to be an alien invader. Priscilla Sehoole of the department says:

Too many lessons have been learnt at high cost when plants that promised to be solutions turned into environmental and social disasters for SA. The plant has to be tested locally to ensure environmental impact and sustainability before it is introduced.

South Africa has ample experience of foreign plants that have spread, destroying indigenous plants and sucking groundwater supplies dry. So, despite numerous advantages of the jatropha seed for biofuels, there are other concerns besides food security. The Science and Development Network reports that China's push to increase biofuel production (which also excludes food crops) threatens to increase deforestation and reduce biodiversity.

community empowerment through energy independence

Starting with a small-scale biogas project funded with a grant from the UN, the Santa Fe Women's Group from Santa Fe de Guatuso in Costa Rica have transformed their lives by taking control of their household energy needs, and gone on to develop a tree nursery, a wetlands conservation project and a rural tourism business. The 16 founding families of the group each built their own biodigesters, with training from the Agriculture Ministry, and use the methane from cow manure for cooking.

The tree nursery provides native tree species for local farmers to help restore and protect the environment, and provides income for the women. In this traditionally conservative community, the women have had to overcome resistance to their growing role in providing for the community, but acceptance has led to new efforts at collaboration and a strong focus on community education. Their work has improved financial security, reduced deforestation, reduced the health problems associated with using wood for cooking, and strengthened the community's efforts at self-improvement.

The Rural Costa Rica website details the stories of these women and their projects, and provides step-by-step instructions on how to build a biodigester suitable for household use, as well as a number of videos and articles on projects in other countries.

house of hemp

You can smoke it, you can wear it, you can make oil and cosmetic products from it, and many people swear by its medicinal properties. South Africa's own House of Hemp sells it in just about any (legal) form you can imagine. (Their first retail outlet was opened in Johannesburg in 2001.) But dude, this stuff is way cool for another reason.

The House of Hemp and the CSIR have been working with the South African Department of Trade and Industry in setting up pilot projects for hemp production in the Eastern Cape. Cannabis has been a huge industry there for decades, but of course it's illegal, and I understand the Department of Health hasn't approved anything other than pilot farms under "drug testing licence", despite DTI involvement. If this is true, a big opportunity is being missed - and this is not just about legalising rural jobs: it's also about climate change.

locavores take note

In the global marketplace, one of the things that South Africa should be concerned about is the effect of carbon labelling on its food exports. Companies like Tesco in the UK are leading a strong drive to account for the carbon impact of the products it sells, and carbon labelling could soon be commonplace. America's Climate Security Act is also considering forcing carbon labelling on imports to the US. The implication is that food (and other products) shipped long distances will not be able to compete with locally grown produce, because of the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from transportation.

A recent article in the New Yorker raises a word of caution worth taking seriously. Nobody can dispute the high carbon emissions of transportation, and there are certainly valid reasons for buying locally produced goods; but if we are going to be carbonsmart, there are a few other things to take into account — and some of them will help maintain the competitiveness of products that are shipped long distances, while still reducing carbon emissions. Consider this:

• Water use, cultivation and harvesting methods, quantity and type of fertilizer, even the type of fuel used to make the package all affect carbon impact, and some countries can grow certain crops with a lower impact than other countries growing the same things. A country that relies more on renewable energy sources will further reduce the carbon impact of its products. (South Africa will lose out on that score, while New Zealand and other countries that have pledged to go carbon neutral will be the winners.)
• Buying food that is in season — even if it is grown far away — could have a lower carbon impact than food grown closer to home but bought out of season, because of the energy requirements of storing food.
• It is actually more “green” for New Yorkers to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. That is largely because shipping wine is mostly shipping glass. (One or two South African wine estates are already going carbon neutral in their on-farm operations, so they should be able to compete handsomely in New York.)
• The impact of importing apples from South Africa to New York could be less than if the apples were grown 50 km away, because more sunshine hours increases the yield and the energy required to grow the crops is correspondingly lower.
• Pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most grazing land in Britain, so shipping New Zealand lamb to London can be better than having Londoners eat British lamb.
• Importing beans from Uganda or Kenya — where the farms are small, tractor use is limited, and the fertilizer is almost always manure — tends to be more efficient than growing beans in Europe, with its reliance on energy-dependent irrigation systems.
• And how do you cook your food once it's in the kitchen? Do you turn the heat up with the lid off the pot, or do you use a hot box — or even a solar cooker? That decision will have a far bigger impact than where your potatoes were grown.

The point of all this is that what seems the obvious ethical choice — or sound environmental choice — may not be what you or I think. The choices may seem difficult, but we are going to have to make them, and taking the simplistic approach to carbon accounting could be more damaging in the long run.

[via Maribo]

degradable plastics in South Africa

After writing about agricultural waste on Monday, I picked up a copy of Farmer's Weekly in a bookstore and noticed an article about biodegradable plastics that can be used as sheets for suppressing weeds, maintaining soil moisture, and other applications, or as bags. A company called Self-Destruct Plastics is selling oxo-biodegradable plastics in South Africa beginning this year. The product can be custom-manufactured to degrade at different rates, depending on the intended application.

As noted by British manufacturer Symphony Environmental, plastics made from crops are subject to the same criticisms levelled at biofuels, notably that they compete with food for land and water.

Degradable plastics are a good idea, but Symphony produces oxo-bio bags made from naptha, a waste product of oil refining which would otherwise be wasted, and no crops are involved in its manufacture. Oxo-bio can be recycled and made from recyclate, but if not recycled it will self-destruct in a short time, leaving no fragments, no methane nor harmful residues. As it is made with the same machinery as normal plastic, oxo-bio has little or no extra cost.

[Update on 14 March 2008: Here's some more research into plastics in South Africa from Engineer Simplicity.]

renewable energy from farming

Having spent most of my teenage years on our family farm in Ontario, Canada, I have a tendency to romanticise small-scale agriculture. When you work the farm as a family, with no hired labour, you are forced to work like the devil and confront your demons. It's no walk in the park, and it's certainly no way to get rich. Yet, for me, the cliches are largely true. Dependence on the soil, the plants and the rain, on healthy lambs and helpful neighbours - these things add perspective to life.

Yes, our voracious appetite for meat and dairy products is devouring land and other resources at a frightening rate, and if we don't change our ways, it looks like something's gonna give. So partly because of my own experience, which was little more than subsistence farming, and partly because of the concerns about agricultural impacts, I have an aversion to large-scale farms that seem more like factories than places where animals should live.

That said, I am intrigued by news of a dairy farm near London, Ontario, that must be about as efficient as a farm can be in making best use of available resources. The Stanton farm of 728 hectares has capacity to handle 2,000 cows, and at this scale the business can make use of technologies to improve sustainability performance that would be unaffordable to smaller farms.

The warm milk coming from the cows is cooled with a two-stage system that is unique in Canada. First, it is cooled as it passes next to water pumped up from deep wells. It is further cooled with a heat exchanger until it is 2 degrees C. The well water, which is warmed as it cools the milk, is used for three purposes: to water the cows, to clean the milking equipment, and to supply a radiant in-floor heating system.

The Stantons are constructing a $4.5 million anaerobic digester that will produce methane from cow manure. At full capacity, the farm will have the capacity to produce 300 kilowatts of power, and could increase output by using manure from other farms or waste from commercial food plants. Solids left over after the methane gas is extracted can be used as animal bedding or a peat moss substitute, and the liquid can be used as organic fertilizer. If the biogas wasn't harvested and converted to useful energy, the manure would produce methane anyway, contributing to global warming.

The farmer's consultant, Gary Fortune, believes the biogas could become a significant source of farm income, with the potential to reduce material going to landfills if waste food and other organic products are collected instead of dumped; but under the Ontario government's alternative energy plan, biogas producers get 11 cents a kilowatt hour, compared to 42 cents for solar. This discrepancy makes it hard to compete.

[via London Free Press. Thanks, D.]

[Update on 12 Feb 2008: In South Africa, Agama Technology has installed a biogas digester on a farm outside Pietermaritzburg. The process is less automated than the Ontario example, but it achieves the same thing on a smaller scale at a fraction of the cost: R50,000, or $6,400 (Canadian) at today's exchange rate. According to today's Business Report, Dave Alcock, a consultant to Agama, "piloted the concept seven years ago in KwaZulu Natal at a house and school at eNdwedwe, just outside eThekwini." Interestingly, the school project failed because "there were people who felt that if it was successful, then the community would never be connected to the Eskom grid and the electricity generated from biogas would not be enough for everyone."]

going slower on biofuels

Good news in South Africa this week is that national cabinet on Wednesday decided to prohibit maize from being used as a feedstock for biofuels. The country will focus on soya beans, sunflower seeds, canola and sugarcane. The hope is that this will help reduce inflationary pressures on the country's staple food source. Cabinet also downgraded the production target for biofuel to make up 2% of liquid fuels by 2013. The draft biofuels strategy had proposed 4.5%.

We need to address the liquid fuels issue, but there are too many risks related to biofuels to rush it as a strategy. If there was a clear and enforceable exit strategy, then biofuels might be a reasonable short-term strategy while we reduce demand for liquid fuels over a longer period, but I would think if we did manage to make biofuels a successful alternative to fossil fuels, we would just hang on to are car-centred way of life even longer, with continually growing carbon emissions and other impacts.

I don't have the inside track on how this cabinet decision was made, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a fairly arbitrary outcome of behind-the-scenes political negotiations, and we are just lucky that the decision-makers took heed of the plea to consider food security. So many studies are prepared as motivation for well-considered decisions, only to have recommendations altered and decisions made without any reference to sound planning. It's scary.

Even scarier is that the Bali negotiations are just as political. I know several people from Cape Town who are there, providing the technical backup, but I wonder how much influence they have on the final outcome. Considering the stakes, I can't believe we're leaving it to the politicians.

***

Update on 8 December 2007:

One of the growing challenges for biofuels (and for many sustainability issues, for that matter) is how to regulate, monitor and authenticate claims. Not all biofuels are created equal. Primafuel is one company that has come up with a way to assess which biofuels are genuinely beneficial, and which are not. How the feedstock is grown, what energy sources are used to process it, and other questions need to be answered so that producers can be held accountable.

pie in the sky

Bringing the farm to the people - high time. A number of concepts for vertical farming have been popping up, but this is the first I've seen that combines farming with apartments. Some might ask, "Why?" I would ask, "Why not?" My fear is that the answer will be, "It's not financially viable."

small-scale farmers supported with global agreements

For eleven years, American company Burke International fought to hold the trademark rights for the name rooibos tea. In February 2004 the American Botanical Council (ABC) issued an “Expert Opinion” on the subject, concluding that rooibos is a generic and common name for the plant material found in international commerce since at least 1962 and sold in the United States for at least four decades. In 2005, the dispute was settled, much to the relief of South African producers. (If you are interested in the legal side of this story, here are a number of related case studies.)

Though the rooibos case seems to have ended on a positive note, the greed and audacity of Burke International makes me sick. So here's some news from Ethiopia showing that global trade isn't all bad (article reproduced from Spore, February 2007 Edition):

The Ethiopian government and a British company, Vernique Biotech, have signed a deal to market an oleaginous plant which Ethiopian farmers have traditionally dismissed as a weed. The shiny black seeds of the Vernonia galamensis contain vernonia oil, a non-polluting alternative to epoxy which is used in the manufacture of paints and plastics. Epoxy is made from oil, and in common with other petrochemical products, its constantly rising price offers opportunities for natural substitutes.

Vernonia has the advantage of growing in the dry valleys of Ethiopia, where soils are too poor to grow food crops. Prized in traditional medicine for its many properties, this drought resistant plant is part of Ethiopia’s natural heritage. By recognising the Ethiopians’ claim to this plant, the deal signed with the British firm is one of the first to embody the equity principles of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. In 2004, a Dutch company signed a similar agreement with Ethiopia to market teff (Eragrostis tef), a local cereal. Vernique Biotech will pay royalties to the government and will give it a share of the profits over the next 10 years. Cultivation of vernonia began in 2004. One hectare yields 1 to 2 t of vernonia oil. The plantations, maintained by hundreds of farmers, are expected to be gradually extended to cover an area of several hundred hectares.

In the long term, the company plans to market the oil for pharmaceutical purposes.