i recently had the opportunity to speak to the indigenous peoples’ liaison for north america with the food and agriculture organization of the united nations, mikaila way. today, her work is focused on building relationships and partnerships with the indigenous nations in canada and the united states focused on revitalizing indigenous peoples’ food systems. 

indigenous peoples’ communities’ challenges and priorities of “food security, food sovereignty, and health have accelerated and intensified during the covid-19 pandemic,” she told me in an interview. way began her job with fao one month before covid-19 changed the world. concerned about how the pandemic would affect indigenous peoples’ communities, she worked with the fao indigenous peoples unit and the liaison office for north america to support communications and network building internationally and regionally. throughout the regional and global coordination, indigenous youth have been and continue to be central in the work to protect and revitalize their food systems and the ongoing response to the pandemic. 

here is our conversation about the expanded and existing collaboration between fao and indigenous youth. the transcript was edited for length and clarity.

q: what do you do in your job? 

a: many different things! the main objective of my work is to connect the work of the indigenous peoples’ unit based in fao headquarters in rome with indigenous peoples in the north america region (canada and usa), with the fao liaison office for north america in washington dc, so we can implement a coordinated work plan. we have done amazing activities, including an introductory series of dialogues with more than 120 indigenous leaders, a high-level expert seminar on north american indigenous peoples´ food systems, a webinar highlighting indigenous women’s role in food systems, and a film screening with the producers of the documentary, “gather” which i strongly recommend all the readers to watch. in preparation toward the un food systems summit, we have coordinated with indigenous youth of north america to develop unified messages and key priorities for global leaders to include in plans for food system transformation. 

q: with the impacts of covid-19 and climate change, how is fao prioritizing opportunities to support and empower indigenous youth?

a: since 2017, the fao has offered an indigenous youth internship program, which is now remote. it is a yearly opportunity that goes out to all regions for indigenous youth internships at fao headquarters in rome, as well as regional offices around the world. the internship supports efforts related to raising awareness on the sustainable development goals (sdg), particularly sdg2 to achieve zero hunger through wide dissemination of fao’s work in this area, with a specific focus on including the voices and opinions of indigenous peoples’ communities.

fao’s focus comes in direct response to the loud call echoed by indigenous youth and elders for global support in the intergenerational transmission of knowledge and empowerment. this transfer of intergenerational knowledge is one of the key priorities for indigenous peoples’ climate change adaptation strategies. we are working with the global indigenous youth caucus as well as global indigenous youth leaders to ensure their voices and priorities are centered in global debates for covid-19 response, collective rights, and climate change adaptations. 

q: what are the highlights activities of the fao collaboration with indigenous youth?

a: fao offers various opportunities for indigenous youth to participate in the (october) world food day celebrations and the world food forum––from attending online events to participating in the poster and poetry contest. fao north america will be hosting indigenous youth for a world food forum launch event on october 6. the following week, they will be hosting indigenous chefs and producers from the americas for an indigenous peoples’ day and world food day event celebrating indigenous peoples’ cuisine across the region and emphasizing the importance of intercultural education about food systems for indigenous youth.  

over the past year and a half, indigenous youth have been contributing to the global dialogues leading up to the un food systems summit (september 23, 2021). during the summit, youth can use social media to make an impact. social media is a powerful tool to raise their voices and make sure they are seen.

this summer, fao and the global indigenous youth caucus organized the global forum on indigenous youth. due to  covid-19, the forum was held online. the silver lining of the online event was, indigenous youth and fao were able to bring together a larger global audience, and it was powerful to see people calling from their communities and territories. the global sessions focused on bringing together speakers on climate change, innovation, ecological knowledge, food systems transformation, the path forward, and the transmission of intergenerational traditional knowledge. the outcomes from these discussions were reflected in a strong statement and recommendations on sustainable and resilient food systems for global leaders to reference.

there are many other upcoming activities. follow the @faoindigenous and @faonorthamerica twitter accounts to get all the information from firsthand. 

information on the opportunities above, as well as fao’s partner organizations that provide similar opportunities, is available on the fao indigenous peoples unit website, as well as fao north america’s site.

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”

“loko i`a,” or fishponds, have nourished hawaiians and sustained cultural practices since ancient times. some 488 fishponds once dotted the hawaiian islands. while few fishponds remain operational, renovating ponds and maintaining them includes reuniting native hawaiians with one of their most honored traditional practices. 

restoring loko ea began over a decade ago. in 2008, volunteers started an informal community workday program. a year later, kamehameha schools suggested the volunteers create a non-profit that would have “kuleana,” or responsibility, for the restoration. james estores and venson lee founded the mālama loko ea foundation, a non-profit that has since expanded its activities beyond physical work; it now educates the community, fosters a return of traditional native hawaiian practices, and raises fish and food for the community.

when the pandemic hit the organization did not spend their time idly; instead, they sought new ways to reunite and support the community. they applied for a cares act support grant, which allowed them to do outreach by bringing people in and to provide nutrients and food resources to the community in the form of hot and ready plates distributed at the north shore food bank. continuing within cdc guidelines, the mālama loko ea foundation held a food drive where they provided about 400 plates a day to their community, with the help of a few community members, which was significantly economically impacted by covid-19.

“the food drive had been happening for years through a partnership with the north shore food bank, but we were able to increase it through the help of the grant. the entire situation was a pretty amazing sight. also, sad because we’re providing food for the community but hard to see the demand was so high and it kept growing and growing every month,” sayo costantino, loko ea’s operations and education program director, said. 

this food drive not only allowed them to provide for their community but also create a stronger sense of the community. with recent loosening restrictions, they are slowly able to host groups again, as more people came by to “talk story,” ask when they can volunteer, and talk about the food they ate during the food drive.

while the community has always been central to the work of the mālama loko ea foundation, it began in an effort to restore the land from its overgrown and unmaintained state. 

“(loko ea) wasn’t helped and invasive grasses were covering over and the community was not allowed in,” costantino said. “the community felt that as a big sore and wanted access and wanted to do restoration here.” 

in seeking to return to traditional native hawaiian practices, and ultimately raise fish and food for the community, education comes first. “the education is important right now because people don’t know these fishponds can be an actual food source and we want to get that there and be that example for this community,” costantino said. “we may not be able to produce for everyone in hawaii, but we can produce what we are able.”

loko ea is doing this by facilitating a fish parting system in which they take what the fishpond naturally gives, instead of pushing the system to a potential breaking point. “profit is not the goal; it’s for our community,” costantino said. the pond produces between 300-500 pounds of fish per acre per year, which provides for the community and alleviates the need for other sources of food. this is not simply the work of the staff, but also the community who assists in this yearly production.

using education as the most immediate tool in this restorative process, loko ea offers a variety of educational programs for all ages. beginning at their roots, community workdays are open to all age groups. the work is based on the needs of the pond. 

“usually what we like to do with volunteers is, if it’s a community workday, we will start with an introduction with the history of the pond so that whoever is here will have an opportunity to learn about the place they will steward at and get a perspective that is suited to better understand the impact the work will have not just for the place but also the surrounding area,” makua perry, loko ea’s malama ‘Āina outreach coordinator and technician, said. 

after this, volunteers move into “malama ʻāina,” or work, which sometimes includes water activities such as pulling weeds. they also might remove invasive species, repair rock walls, plant native plants on the property, or even clear the land to plant in the future. some volunteers simply help prepare for an event by transporting things around the pond or helping with administrative tasks. “no day in loko ea is the same, and it really depends on what she needs from you when you come,” costantino said.

workdays are not the only opportunities that loko ea provides for the community. for those who are able to commit more time they also offer a variety of leadership, mentorship, and internship programs. these are opportunities to not only learn but act––not only for the land but also to ensure the survival and cultural continuation of their people.

after proudly helping their community in the midst of the pandemic and forging new connections, loko ea plans to maintain this momentum moving forward through the power of “mo’olelo.” 

“when it comes to history and tradition, genealogical connections to place, and people, mo’olelo plays a huge part in all of those things,” perry said. “at loko ea, there is a framework that has been created by a generation of storytellers within our culture that helps us understand what we do or don’t see with our eyes because it’s not there. it’s those types of stories that are traveled through our ancestors that kinda create and maintain the cultural integrity of space and the people.”

he continued, “look at the genealogical chant of the kumulipo, written for a chief who was born and recited this 2000 long long history that extends from po which is darkness and created all of these living beings. life starts in the ocean within our genealogical chant. through this chant, we see the story that is told through the creation of the world, and creation of hawaii and man to walk on this earth.”

embedded in this chant are lessons, behavior management, etiquette, and so many layers, hidden layers where they can unravel some things through mo’olelo. makua said, “land is everything that flows through it and everything that grows through it. that’s why it is important to teach protocol, sacredness to land, and culturally significant places like this; there is cultural and spiritual sacredness and it is something that needs to be nurtured. use it for the benefit of all things involved, and learn how to feed your people for generations and generations.”

witnessing the sheer passion of the staff and the community members, i am certain that in due time this is exactly what they will do. the mālama loko ea foundation is not just an organization, but it is becoming a home and beacon of light for many community members on the north shore of hawaii where native hawaiian traditions and practices are being returned to the “ʻāina.” they are reclaiming agriculture and aquaculture work in hawaii and showing the community why these fields are important so that hopefully the next generation will also give back to the land. just as she did for me, when you visit, loko ea will tell you what she needs.

for more information on how you can get involved with the mālama loko ea foundation, please check out their website here: https://www.lokoea.org/. also, if you’re interested in learning more about the history of loko ea and the surrounding area of haleʻiwa, please see diane naomi canon’s story.

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”

ancient hawaiians created a system of fishponds that were sacred, sustainable to nature, and structured societal roles within the native hawaiian class system. at the height of native hawaiian society, between 700 and 800 years ago, this traditional aquaculture system numbered as many as 488 fishponds across the hawaiian islands and supplied food to entire communities. by 1901, just 99 fishponds were in use; and in the 20th century, most stopped producing fish.

loko ea’s malama ‘Āina is one of the fishponds that is being brought back to life. 

native hawaiians stopped maintaining loko ea and other fishponds when a more western society came into hawaii. at that time, people found other work and they stopped managing the natural resources and cultural practices that had previously sustained the food supply, explained makua perry, outreach coordinator and technician at loko ea. “we see elsewhere a huge mindset in the mind of our native people and that’s where we see development and a lot of businesses taking over hawaii and oahu, which has caused us not to see very many fish ponds anymore,” said perry, adding that pearl harbor was the most densely populated area of fishponds. now just two to four are subjects of restoration attempts.

he continued, “back in the days when it came to stewardship of the land, the currency was a trading and barter system, not a money management system; it was a shared balance between the resources we find in the plane.” 

with the introduction of western ideas by colonizers also came the introduction of the capitalistic mindset it holds close, and native hawaiians had to adapt in order to survive. 

“mid-1800’s going into the 1900’s, the plantation era changed and brought the culture into a new concept and understanding that they need to make money to sustain their families and the new westernized way of living,” makua said.

the power of storytelling can be traced back to the beginning of man. whether it be the cave paintings of early cave dwellers to the first written artifacts of the sumerians, humanity has been fascinated with telling stories that have informed their future generations and given insight to strangers of their practices, culture, and ways of life. this is no different in native hawaiians as “mo‘olelo,” or storytelling, is embedded deeply in the hawaiian culture. however, mo‘olelo are not just stories, they are a way for people to explain how the world works. hawaiian culture teaches that finding a balance with and respect for the natural world is critical.

stemming back hundreds of years to the first inhabitants or the first migration of the first people to the islands of hawai’i, today known as native hawaiians, were the first islanders in the pacific to co-exist with ponds through fish farming. specifically beginning on the island of maui, there is a mo’olelo that is shared and passed down within native hawaiian communities and with anyone interested in learning more about native hawaiian practices of a specific man named ku‘ula-kai.

ku‘ula-kai was said to be one of the first prominent land stewards within the island of maui. 

he had a human body but was possessed with “mana kupua,” or supernatural powers, in directing and controlling the fish of the sea. while living at leho’ula with his wife, he dedicated his time to fishing. he constructed a fishpond next to his house named after himself, near the shore where the surf breaks, and stocked his pond with many kinds of fish. this place was meant to be sacred, or “kapu,” for the fishing; here he offered his first fish caught to the fish god. it was reported all over hana that ku‘ula-kai was then given a gift: fish became “laka loa,” or obedient, to his command.

having had this very special ability to steward and raise marine life in a significant way for the benefit of the native hawaiian communities, one way that he thought to elevate the relationship between man and animals or other types of living beings within the island ecosystem was to create a rock wall structure that extended out into the reef systems in our near-shore fisheries and that ultimately created an amazing estuary and rich ecosystem that connected both salt and freshwater, creating a brackish water environment for the fish to live prosperously. it was said that in hana maui, the east side of maui, ku‘ula-kai created the very first fishpond created hundreds of years ago. the ahu pua’a system was created through this practice and altered depending on specific districts, in which this fishpond system is still practiced today. in fact, the remnants of those historical sites are even still noticeable today through efforts of restoring these ancient fishponds.

the ahu pua’a system was created many generations ago by an “ali’i,” chief or chiefess, named māʻilikūkahi, one of the more prominent chiefs on the island of oahu. in those times of warfare, there were many chiefs and chiefesses, as well was commoners, who struggled to figure out their responsibility to their land, villages, and, ultimately, families regarding their jurisdiction within certain spaces of an island or from the mountain to the sea. in an attempt to bring more order to society, māʻilikūkahi created the ahu pua’a system. ahu is the hawaiian word for altar or space to give offerings, and pua’a is the word for pig. ahu pua’a is a pig-like altar to symbolize the importance of balance and protocol of resources to ensure the avoidance of overuse and taking from others. 

when māʻilikūkahi created this system, he parceled out the islands into smaller districts called ahupua`a, which extended from the mountain down to the ocean. if these small districts are brought together, they create what is called “mokus.” mokus are larger land districts that are given names (like kona, located in the waikiki district) and based upon the direction or the space that they are located on the island. these borders and land districts created a more sustainable way of living and created order within “ali’i,” or commoner class systems, for each person to understand their role in society and where to obtain the resources that were created.

this story of the decline of hawaiian fishponds is not a unique one. with the rise of colonization, western ideologies continued to engulf the world; and many indigenous communities were either forced or incentivized to leave their traditional practices behind. with the development and industrialization witnessed in hawaii, “fields in agriculture and aquaculture are seen as lesser than,” makua said. this is a discouraging fact that has perpetuated many native hawaiians from returning to cultural practices such as the development of fishponds.

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”

newman developed his farm with a vision to provide equitable access to fresh, nutritious food to residents of the washington metro area and other cities in maryland and virginia. it’s a tall order. while newman has access to nearly 2,000 acres, the farm currently operates on 120 acres with a team of 7 and is focused on the production of beef, pork, chicken, and eggs.

newman’s goal of accessible, sustainable food places him at odds with the dominant practices and intellectual framework of both industrial agriculture and small, sustainable farming. in contrast to the factory farms typical of industrial agriculture, his cattle are entirely grass-fed and his pigs forage in managed woodland—creating a double benefit that both minimizes the use of external grain feed and contributes to his development of a food forest. yet, unlike some organic suppliers, he prioritizes accessibility of his food; this year, he launched a food donation program to provide for the hungry in addition to his wealthier customer base. true to his twitter bio, newman’s approach to the business of sustainable farming is “something else”—something outside of existing models. 

broadly speaking, there have been two streams of alternative agriculture: one which seeks to reform the agribusiness industry from within, and one which seeks to challenge it from outside. gunsmoke farms is an example of the former. owned by general mills, gunsmoke’s 34,000 acres in fort pierre, south dakota, supply the needs of the company’s organic products, such as annie’s organic mac & cheese. besides avoiding the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, the initial plan for the farm included the use of cover cropping, no-till planting, and other practices aimed at building soil health and bolstering the surrounding ecosystem. three years later, however, these plans have failed to materialize, leading to the degradation and erosion of soil on the farm, and drawing public criticism.

the second stream of agricultural reform centers on a rejection of big business, and sees the solution as a myriad of small, individual farms serving the needs of their local communities. polyface farms, owned by virginia farmer joel salatin, is a quintessential example. salatin is something of a heavyweight in sustainable farming spheres: he has been hailed as america’s most famous farmer, his 550-acre livestock farm was named the mecca of sustainable agriculture, and he has published 11 books which teach his methods and philosophy.

salatin claims that a farm’s philosophy is just as important as its practices; if anything, it is more important since philosophy forms the root from which practice springs. at polyface, the cows are grass-fed, the pigs forage in the woods, and grain feed for the free-range chickens is locally sourced and non-gmo. according to salatin, “[polyface’s] goals are not about sales; they are about quality.” he writes that the organic label is not comprehensive enough and “does not incentivize anyone to do better than the minimum standards,” leading to what he calls “industrial junk organics.” 

salatin said his vision is “to see a million polyfaces displace all the monsanto and usda demons.” at the same time, he proudly claimed that “polyface has never had a sales target, marketing plan, or business plan,” which reek far too much of profit-oriented farming to him. instead, expansion of his model depends on a two-tiered value shift. first, farmers must make quality their priority. if they do, “customers will come and sales will increase automatically,” he said. at the same time, consumers must consciously choose ethical and environmentally responsible farms. in his words, “get your nose out of people magazine and research and then patronize food and farm organizations that treat their folks with the values you value.”

as a single entity, it is impossible to deny the success of polyface. the farm pulls hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in revenue and is proof that regenerative farming can be financially viable. yet, polyface faces a number of problems when it comes to salatin’s goal of mass replication, problems which are representative of small-farm sustainability as a movement––problems like affordability.

food from polyface is prohibitively expensive. a dozen eggs sell for $6.75; milk at $11.30 to a gallon. for a purely profit-oriented farm, these prices are not a problem. there are a sufficient number of customers willing and wealthy enough to pay a premium for salatin’s “beyond organic” food that his farm can not only survive, but thrive.

yet, newman of sylvanaqua said that the success of sustainable farming in business does not necessarily translate to its success as a movement. if the goal of sustainable farming is to reform the food system entirely, sustainably sourced food must be accessible to everybody, not just a wealthy portion of the market. 

salatin is not alone in naming consumer values as the battlefield of sustainable agriculture. he is joined by figures such as alice waters, champion of slow food, who censured the nation’s “fast food values,” and wendell berry, author and farmer, whose essay the pleasures of eating argued that “[eating] is inescapably an agricultural act, and how we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used.” in other words, it is consumers who are responsible for the growth of sustainable farming while producers are free from scrutiny.

newman is skeptical of this shame-and-blame tactic. he said that a critique of behavior may change the habits of an audience which can afford to listen, but $11 milk is simply beyond the reach of a minimum or low-wage worker, no matter how strong the “value shift.” newman believes any solution that is centered on altering consumer behavior is doomed to fail—and is either unaware of the realities of poverty and lower-middle income or chooses not to engage with them.

at sylvanaqua, newman is trying to take the best of both small sustainable farms and industrial agribusiness by pairing commitment to ethical and environmental responsibility with efficiency and productivity. he said that only through this balance can sustainable agriculture be successful, and suggested that many of sustainable agriculture’s shortcomings stem from a reactionary mindset.

“part of (the problem) i think is a certain degree of intellectual laziness…big ag is big, so (people think) the solution must be small,” he said. “big ag is integrated, so (people think) the solution must be to not integrate, to disperse, to only focus on the farming. big ag is all about business, so (people think) sustainable ag must be decidedly non-business.”

the issue with this response, newman explained, is that it’s simplistic. in rejecting large agribusiness across-the-board, small farmers may reject not only the flaws, but the traits that made industrial agriculture successful—traits like scale. 

according to the usda, the class of farms making $100,000-$250,000 per year and the class making $500,000 to $1 million each work about 15% of u.s. farmland. the only difference between the two groups is that the average farm in the former category is about 1,000 acres large, while the average in the latter is just short of 2,000. in other words, fewer, larger farms are able to produce more on the same amount of land than smaller, more numerous ones, thus enabling them to sell at cheaper prices. newman believes that in order to compete, sustainable agriculture must embrace the efficiencies of scale rather than salatin’s million-polyface dream.

while newman said that farmers need to adopt business models that boost affordability, he said that price is only one part of a larger problem of accessibility. in his estimation, the strategies that small farmers use for selling and distributing their food are fantastically impractical.

“people use farmers markets which only operate one or two days a week, and usually during the day, when people are working…and god help you if it rains,” he said. pickup programs for community supported agriculture shares often fall victim to the same critique, with the added hurdle that the farmer, not the customer, picks the produce, meaning people may not get either what they need or know how to use. even if farm food is affordable, it may not be available. a local, all-hours supermarket is an easier, more accessible way to get food than the intermittent, and sometimes distant options that farmers have on offer.

acting alone, farmers don’t have the time to sell their food every day of the week, much less for extended hours. and until they do, farmers are limited in the customers they can reach. this problem calls to another tactic from industrial food: vertical integration. not only does this lower the cost of the end product by eliminating middlemen, newman said, it also allows farmers to focus on what they do best, rather than stretching themselves thin and doing everything inadequately. the farm is only one part of the food system, and any successful attempt at reform will have to work on broader scales, he said.

sylvanaqua does not yet embody all of newman’s ideals. yes, the chickens are free-range, the cattle grass-fed, and the pigs forage in silvopasture-managed woodland with trees whose fruit and nuts supplement the pigs’ diets. yet, in terms of scale, sylvanaqua is a far cry from gunsmoke farms, operating at just 120 acres, which is all that current demand warrants. the prices for his products are high—$5.50 for a dozen eggs, $15 for a pound of bacon. not content to remain this way, newman is aggressively pursuing expansion, most recently through sylvanaqua’s mutual aid program.

newman created the program this summer in response to the farm’s shortcomings in affordability and accessibility. the process is this: sylvanaqua’s customers are encouraged to buy mutual aid shares along with their other purchases. the shares are also advertised to the tens of thousands of followers of newman’s social media accounts. this money is used to pay for meat and eggs that go to food aid organizations who provide meals in washington, d.c. and other cities in the region.

“not everybody has a stove, or cookware, or the expertise, or time to cook the food we have,” newman said. “[these] organizations know how to turn our food into something accessible for people.” 

while these organizations are not owned by sylvanaqua, these collaborations demonstrate the benefits of vertical integration. the program is also helping newman to expand his business. 

“it’s really hard and really expensive to break into new geographic markets,” he said, “because it usually starts with three or four people, or it starts with doing a farmer’s market, which are both ways to lose lots of money really quickly. what mutual aid allows us to do is show up to annapolis with $1,000 worth of paid food donations, and… deliver to three or four regular customers in annapolis without losing money [on transportation and time].” the program has provided over $35,000 in food donations since its inception in late june.

yet, newman is by no means blind to the shortcomings of agribusiness. like salatin, he sees the problem as one of philosophy and worldview, something evident in his writing.

“xàskwim (corn) monocultures are not a white invention,” newman wrote. “in fact, my own ancestors planted them. first-contact colonizer accounts describe in detail cornfields that stretched for miles and miles…but these fields weren’t planted every year…(but) with a careful ethic of not taking too much even when a vast monoculture was involved.” 

as newman sees it, big agriculture is not inherently antithetical to sustainability. while the environmental and social problems surrounding the current agricultural system are numerous, it is also necessary to recognize the ways in which it has been successful in bringing food to people. improving food systems requires coupling the best that agribusiness has to offer with people, organizations, and businesses that center people and environment over profit. to reform food, sustainable farming needs to be the new “big ag.”

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”

“i thought, you know, what in the world is this guy doing?” said brown, who owns a corn, soybean, hay, and beef cattle farm with his wife, jennifer, in highland county, ohio.

he couldn’t figure out what was growing — it was too tall and lanky for wheat — so he made a point of meeting his neighbor that summer. turns out, he had been tending to his field of cereal rye, a popular cover crop, a type of crop grown usually in off-seasons to improve soil health and mitigate erosion.

the pair got to talking about soil health and erosion, and soon brown set aside one of his bean fields for a cereal rye crop of his own.

interest in sustainable farming practices is building, and while independent and governmental conservation organizations can be good resources for promoting ecological practices, farmers say that swapping information peer-to-peer works best.

“i think the number one way this movement is growing, just like it grew with me, is from another farmer,” said brown, a 40-year-old first-generation farmer.

it’s been 10 years since he spied his neighbor drilling in the winter chill. today, he keeps 90% of his roughly 1,300 acres covered year-round.

wide lens mobile phones are important information-sharing tools for rural farmers around the globe, but many lack access to data and internet service. across africa, less than 40% of farming households have internet access, according to a 2020 study published in nature sustainability.

the missing ingredient

farmer interest in sustainability practices has grown, especially in soil health, said taylor dill, agriculture and natural resources educator for ohio state university’s darke county extension program.

it’s a national trend. the number of organic farms increased 39% from 2012 to 2017, according to the latest united states department of agriculture census, while the average farm put in place no-till practices on 374 acres of land, 29 more acres than in 2012. for cover crops, that average acreage increased from 77 to 100.

dill said that younger farmers — “the next generation that will inherit the land” — show a particular interest. with farmers of any age, “one of the most effective ways that we can teach farmers is being able to have another farmer speak to another farmer about an experience. they’re going to listen to their peers,” she said. 

greg mcglinch owns and operates down home farms in darke county. “word of mouth still means a lot in rural america,” he said.

wide lens farmers use mobile phones to grow their businesses, but the cost of owning a phone can set them back. low-income farmers in asia spend anywhere from 11 to 24% of their income on mobile services, according to a 2009 study. 

in that vein, brown started the “ohio soil health and cover crops” facebook group, which has racked up over 1,600 followers as of august 30, 2021. the feed includes everything from no-till instructional videos to requests for advice on best ratios for soil additives.

brown had a bad slug problem this year, but saw that the unwelcome pests weren’t showing up on his cover crop fields. he threw that idea out for the community to mull over. the page is there for farmers to crowd-source, said brown — “to bounce ideas off of one another, or solutions.”

farmers talk to each other. but that point is often missed on the national scale, dill said. much of the time, farmers are “overlooked,” she says, while the public, clamoring for sustainability measures, “want to go straight to having a policy rather than having a conversation first.”

that’s wonky, said dill, since “all of those decisions directly affect producers.”

science in the field

greg mcglinch’s farm is a checkerboard of harvestable crops, conservation practices and experimentation. on a clear june day, the 41-year-old farmer pointed out all the pieces from behind the wheel of a trundling four-wheeler.

there’s the strip of flowering plants between the forest grove, and a harvest field that acts as a habitat buffer. a low, concrete mass buried at one end of the creek is a head wall that keeps rainwater from ripping up the waterway’s banks. there’s the field of perennial wheatgrass that mcglinch said he didn’t quite know what to do with yet, except to “start playing and learning” how he could sell the hardy crop.

“it’s a real complex career,” he said, between deft sips of coffee from a sloshing mug as the four-wheeler tooled down a path toward his vegetable plot. mcglinch rotates the garden every year from one side to another, and moves the mobile chicken coop he built to the unoccupied side for a season of good fertilizer.

learning these techniques — “it’s kind of hard knocks,” he said. “i do a lot of reading and researching and talking with friends and (seeing) what other farmers are doing.”

sustainable farming practices aren’t just handed down from a lab to farmers, dill said. farmers often offer their own ideas; researchers try the ideas out on a farmer’s fields or at a small plot at a university, which publishes the results in peer-reviewed journals and in fact-sheets that farmers and extension educators use in field trips to disperse the information. and money is always part of the equation.

“when we’re talking with farmers, we’re talking about how we can be more sustainable,” dill said, “but also we need to be able to make sure they’re still productive.”

it’s not a simple yes or no as to whether sustainability practices cut costs, brown said. there are a lot of factors that make up the cost and profit of any one plot or field. he said he sees returns on expenses for seeding and tending cover crops in the reduced use of fertilizers and nutrient applications.

it’s a lot of looking forward, brown said. if his soil is healthy, for example, it will hold more water, making his crops less vulnerable in dry years.

“when i sit down and look at my budgets,’ he said, “i don’t want this to be an extra expense.” 

mcglinch also knows that balance well. “you’ve got to make a profit, or you can’t keep going,” he said. “at the same time, you’ve got to find a good balance, because we want to keep the land in the best shape.”

the farming industry hasn’t reached equilibrium yet, he said, but it can.

“we do need large-scale agriculture because we have a population to feed. it’s just a matter of how do we balance all that, too. i think there’s a way, it’s just, we’ve got to learn.”

it’s not all up to farmers, though. “at the end it’s going to come down to consumer decisions,” mcglinch said. “it’s the buying power. it’s what the consumer wants.”

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”

“it’s really healing to be able to tend to a space where food comes from,” said woods, shoveling fistfuls of leafy greens into bins. “you put love in and you get love out.”

woods is 24 years old and is part of a nonprofit urban farming program in omaha, nebraska called big muddy urban farm, which houses burgeoning young farmers rent-free, hands them $10,000 and a few urban plots, and guides them to build a business plan to pay back the loan. then, they get to growing.

“it’s like a simulation of a business,” woods said. the aspiring farmers get to hop in for a year with a financial safety net from years before if profits don’t cover costs.

the program minimizes some of the financial barriers that keep potential farmers from entering the industry, like low profit. many farmers have a working partner to make up a living income every year or a second job, like woods, who raps and produces freelance videos.

for producers, small-scale urban operations also avoid the financial challenges of buying swaths of expensive cropland. these farmers can’t grow enough food to fill huge orders, so they’re dependent on small and individual buyers.

about 50 to 60 customers buy from big muddy’s community supported agriculture. avenues to fresh produce are needed in the omaha-council bluffs metro area, where 9% of people live in a food desert, according to the landscape, a data collection project of the omaha community foundation.

nationally, 4% of people live in a food desert, an area where at least 1 in 3 live at least a mile from a grocery store and 1 in 5 people live below the poverty line.

wide lens a third of the globe lives in urban areas, according to a 2020 report from un habitat, which predicts that share will grow to 39% by 2035. at the same time, global demand for food will increase 70% by 2050, predicts the world bank.

money is a concern for producers, too. the farmers in big muddy’s program, like many young farmers, pick up odd jobs to keep their budget sheets in the black. the usda census reports that 65% of young farmers have a primary occupation other than farming.

with enough land, “i can grow as much food as i want, but if there’s nobody to buy it then i’m not going to make any money,” woods said.

a ‘big safety net’

when sophia cooper was a kid, she would catch fish in her hands in the trash-filled creek by her house in council bluffs, iowa. as a 20-year-old, she talked about that love of kicking around outside all day, and channeled that into her own farming and volunteer work, introducing kids in omaha to gardening and growing food.

“we always think kids aren’t paying attention, but they’re so good outside,” she said. “they’ll dig in the soil, they don’t care if they’re dirty. they have no cares.”

cooper is another resident at big muddy, and a senior at university of nebraska omaha, where she studies secondary education. she said she has options for what to do in the future, like teaching, wool farming, or cannabis farming, but she has to factor-in how to make a living.

the initial costs of starting a farm are daunting. “farmland typically stays within families for years and years, and then it’s expensive,” she said. “if you don’t have access to income already, then you’re just not going to get it. you’re just never going to be able to buy it.”

only 4% of farmland was expected to be sold from 2014 to19, according to a usda report, with 38% of those sales between relatives. 

wide lens lending to smallholder farmers is difficult, according to the world bank, which estimated in 2014 that their lending avenues were reaching less than 10 percent of smallholders.

cooper says free rent and land from big muddy are a big help, but she still works tutoring and waitressing gigs on the side.

woods said he knows people who are interested in starting their own farms, but it’s just too expensive for them to get started. for him, it’s a “big safety net” to not have to pay for rent and land, he said.

he could make the move to farming because “i didn’t put any risk into it,” he said.

representation matters

woods had been interested in sustainable agriculture before he ever considered farming in nebraska, but didn’t see people of color represented in his community until he took an online class run by ron finley, a black urban farmer and fashion designer.

“i was like, ‘oh, black people can grow food,’” woods said.

black farmers in america have historically faced significant social and economic barriers to owning and operating their own land. after emancipation, the u.s. government failed to implement a land settlement plan, leaving many former slaves with no economically viable option for buying land, according to a usda report.

the decades following saw mixed progress for black farmers. land ownership increased, but most black farmers faced “economic stagnation” fueled by racist jim crow laws, according to the report. and while the new deal of the 1930s shored up subsidies for white farmers, black farm ownership decreased from lack of access to those programs.

today, only 5% of american farmers are people of color, according to the usda census, though their numbers grew  7.5% from 2012 to 2017.

young, diverse farmers need to see their peers in the farming community, woods said. until finley’s class, he couldn’t see farming in his future. woods said, “i always thought agriculture was important, i just never could see myself being the person to do it.”

cooper wound her way under the beaming july sun through omaha’s gifford park neighborhood, where big muddy’s plots are scattered like neat, leafy vistas. she skirted behind a house to arrive at one of the farm’s chicken coops.

“it’s very hard to find a space,” she said, surveying the chickens. “being a woman, being a woman of color, like, where do i get accepted in this field?”

back at the house, woods finished packing up his kale for susan safia. she’s the founder of life elixir juice and a young, black woman. they packed the greens into safia’s car and haggled congenially for a moment over the price.

“the things that i can find locally, i really want to support because it helps my business,” she said. “i can say that this produce came locally.”

woods said he sees more and more people interested in where their food comes from. “i think people are just getting tired of living (a) life where they don’t actually get to connect with the earth,” he said.

across the street, the rows of cucumbers, melons, and squash that woods tends ate up the summer sun.

“you know, there’s something good even in just having your own backyard vegetable garden,” he said. sustainable, regenerative farming — “it’s the only right way to farm.” 

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”

“when we first got furloughed, we thought it was only a couple months, like two months, three months,” kwong said. “and then they keep extending, extending, extending. the city opened back but the hotel didn’t have enough conventions, meetings, or tourists so they don’t have the revenue to call everyone back to work.”

the month he was put on furlough, george started volunteering at the san francisco marin food bank to help out his community. months later, in june 2020, the food bank hired kwong. he plans to continue working there even after he returns to his job at the hotel.

“working at the hotel wasn’t just a job, it’s what i like to do,” he said. “if people are happy with the food you make, you are happy too. same thing, when you serve the community, you help people and make them happy.”

as the covid-19 pandemic triggered a global economic crisis, many were out of work and unable to afford food. out of the 2.6 million people in california who lost their jobs between february and april 2020, 64% were in jobs in low paying industries which disproportionately employ people of color.

in early august, 2021, over a year into the pandemic, new covid-19 cases reached the highest daily average since january 2021––coinciding with the rise of the delta variant. in the united states, communities of color have been disproportionately hit by covid-19 due to economic inequities that stand to continue in a post-pandemic world while wealthier majority populations return to “normal life.” this trend held true in san francisco, where people of color, 54.8% of the population, accounted for 63.3% of total covid-19 cases as of august 28, 2021. the case rate was even more disproportionate at the beginning of the pandemic, from april 2020 through august 2020, when latinx residents accounted for over half of the cases each month despite making up only 15.2% of the population.

when california became the first state in the u.s. to issue a statewide stay-at-home order in march 2020, communities needed adaptation and expansion of food assistance initiatives. in response, the city of san francisco partnered with local non-profit and community-based organizations to minimize food insecurity through the pandemic. the city spent more than $80 million in the 2021 fiscal year to create new food security programs and initiatives, said susie smith, deputy director of policy and planning at the san francisco human services agency.

smith said that this budget “provided for continued support for food access through local food banks, programs for older adults with disabilities—people (who) were specifically being asked to stay at home—as well as meals for unsheltered people and meal delivery options for people (who) needed to isolate and quarantine.” 

the san francisco marin food bank partnered with the city government to pilot pop-up pantries which provide produce free of cost. 

“investing in the bank was our mass distribution effort,” smith said. “(the food bank) created a robust network—about 20-22 pop-ups across the city that the food bank had organized.”

meanwhile, the nonprofit meals on wheels san francisco delivered 2.4 million meals and served 16,460 individuals overall in 2020, three-times the number of people served in any prior year; the organization broadened their services beyond their pre-pandemic demographic of senior citizens, according to jim oswald, director of marketing and communications at meals on wheels san francisco. meals on wheels partnered with the city to become the intake for the isolation and quarantine line—a hotline for individuals to call if they were impacted by covid and could not get groceries. according to their blog, nearly 87% of meal delivery requests through the hotline are in african-american and hispanic communities.

another program, farm to family repurposed wasted produce from farms and delivered it to food banks. the federal and state governments expanded supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap) benefits to increase access through pandemic electronic benefits transfer (p-ebt) cards, which repurposed the money towards summer meals for low-income students to spend on food. 

hilary seligman, professor at the university of california, san francisco, has studied food insecurity and hunger policy. seligman said, “this layered intervention is a quilt of things between school meals, women, infants, and children (wic) changes, snap changes, pop up pantries and farms to family. through all those things together, i think we really kept food insecurity rates much, much, much lower than they would have been.”

while the city of san francisco and local organizations innovated to serve food insecure populations, some initiatives were built for the short term and lacked the infrastructure to be durable, seligman said.

for instance, great plates delivered, a unitary federally funded california emergency food project, ended its food assistance program in california after 18 months. and farm to family, though federally funded, lacked infrastructure at the state level to be distributed fairly through the state of california, according to laura reid, director of communications at ca association of food banks. keely hopkins, communications manager at the san francisco marin food bank, said she recognized anecdotally that the food bank might not be serving certain demographics as well as others and that they hope to take a more data driven approach to inform targeted outreach in the future.

in a perfect world, seligman said, fewer people would rely on nonprofits and community based organizations for food.

“ideally, we would have a social safety net in place that was provided equitably to all people so that there weren’t people who fell through the cracks,” seligman said. “we’re not there.” 

local and state governments are limited in their ability to spend on social programs because they can’t run deficits, according to michael hankinson, professor of political science at george washington university. they can take out debt, but that starts to hurt them in the long run.

still, the pandemic brought broad attention to a pre-existing need for policies to address food inequity in the long term––and illuminated a path toward durable and equitable food policy initiatives, according to samina raja, professor of urban and regional planning at the university at buffalo and leading expert on building healthy and equitable food systems. 

“society at large felt there was a crisis because the wealthy and majority populations were bearing the brunt,” raja said. “that’s why everybody started paying attention (to issues of food insecurity). that kind of crisis already exists in my city in the black neighborhoods. i have elders, black elders, who are routinely without food, who are routinely without deliveries, who do not get calls from their social service workers. that is not new for them. in fact, some of them were like, ‘we know what to do, because we’ve seen this before.’”

she continued, “going forward, local governments would be smart by investing in (policies) and programs that center black communities and brown communities because they actually know what their neighborhoods need. the lesson from covid is when you move forward beyond the crisis points, remember that community networks are essential for developing thoughtful food policy.”

according to raja, one way to bring black and brown communities into the conversation is to establish black and brown-led advisory groups within local governments. this develops more infrastructure for food initiatives by ensuring communities of color are represented in policy deliberations. 

this method is being tested in baltimore, where the city government implemented a food policy council. resident food equity advisors work closely with city staff to provide recommendations that support the community with nutritious and culturally appropriate food.

raja recommended another solution involving the consultation of communities of color––reforming urban agriculture. this may come in the form of community land trusts that are controlled by black and brown households in black and brown neighborhoods. 

“(a land trust is) a specific mechanism that allows communities themselves to take control of land and decide how it serves the needs of residents and neighborhoods of color,” raja said. 

unless paired with policy measures to ensure affordable housing, increasing property value can be counterproductive for residents of low-income neighborhoods, who may be pushed out by increased rent or property tax. organizations like the dudley street initiative implement strategies that encourage development without displacement, raja said. 

entrepreneurial grant programs for black, indigenous, and people of color communities also aid in the prevention of food insecurity because they allow “black and brown communities, immigrant and refugee communities to start up their own food businesses,” raja said.

yet, according to seligman, these initiatives are easier to implement on the local and state level. california has already implemented a universal school lunch program, school meals for all. 

“a lot of the policies in place for government programming systematically exclude people,” seligman said. “they are rooted in a desire from previous generations to limit access to that programming. and while there are efforts to unwind many of those policies, the federal systems tend to do this unwinding slowly.”

while community organizations provided short term solutions during the economic precarity of the covid-19 pandemic, those invested in food security may look ahead to the next renegotiation of the farm bill in 2023. according to seligman, 80% of the funds included in the farm bill are dedicated to federal nutrition programming, presenting a substantial opportunity to change the infrastructure of federal support for the food system across the u.s.

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”

breckbill is the majority shareholder of humble hands harvest in decorah, a town in the northeast corner of iowa. everything about her and her farm are atypical for the state, which churns out 18% of the u.s.’s soybean and corn crops every year, according to the iowa official register. breckbill, 34, is a first-generation, queer, organic vegetable farmer on a 22 acre worker-owned farm.

when she retires, she said, she’ll sell her shares at the price she bought them, regardless of how much the price of the land increases. so, the only money she’ll be making over her career is from what food she grows and sells. the point of the farm, breckbill said, is to serve the community and protect the land.

“the reason we’re running this business is to grow food for people and to steward the land well,” she said. “the whole wealth-building element of agriculture is not part of our purpose.” 

“but, it happens anyway,” she said. “land accrues in value.”

wide lens globally, 10% of rural populations account for 60 percent of agricultural land value, according to the land equality initiative report.

she’ll be giving up plenty of money by refusing to hike up the price of the shares once she sells, since the price of farm real estate in the corn belt is valued at $6,110 per acre, almost twice the national average, according to a 2020 report from the united states department of agriculture, which records farmland value rising steadily since 1993. 

that’s precisely the problem, breckbill said. the traditional model of land acquisition in farming means that young farmers need to buy or be given land owned by their families, or have enough capital to compete with big businesses. that’s a heavy barrier of entry for first-generation farmers like her. 

“i definitely could not have done it as an individual person,” breckbill said. but humble hands harvest didn’t face the usual start-up costs of a young farm.

wide lens only 1% of farms operate more than 70 percent of the world’s farmland, according to a 2020 report from the land equality initiative, while the large majority, 80%, of farms around the world are less than 5 acres.

“not in my backyard”

when the 22 acres at the end of hidden falls road went up for auction, the neighbors made a mad dash to buy the land at asking price — $5,500 an acre. 

if an industrial farm moved in, “it would definitely ruin the neighborhood as well as the air and water around here,” said steve mccargar, who lives five minutes down the gravelly lane in a solar grid-tied home he built using recycled timber from crumbling farmhouses. 

wide lens agriculture is the main degrader of inland and coastal waters in high-income and emerging economies, according to a 2017 united nations food and agriculture organization report: “farms discharge large quantities of agrochemicals, organic matter, drug residues, sediments and saline drainage into water bodies.”

mccargar and his partner heidi swets moved to decorah in the ’80s from ann arbor, michigan, in search of a place to live environmentally responsibly, a calling stoked by years of environmental activism and observance of the writing of back-to-the-land gurus helen and scott nearing. 

several of the neighbors on hidden falls road made the same pilgrimage, partly from “serendipity and accident,” partly to join the growing community of alternative thinkers. with a robust food co-op, the northeast iowa peace & justice center, luther college, and self-proclaimed “hippies” like mccargar roaming around, this town of 7,500 in the heart of corn country is a stew of progressivism and traditional ag in the heart of corn country.

mccargar spearheaded the local operation to buy what became humble hands harvest land. 

it started with a story that got around about a farm at the other end of the road, said mccargar, gesturing over his shoulder from where he sits in a fold-out chair in his garden. he tells the story like a preface.

“i had just been made aware of an auction that had happened at the end of our road,” he said — not breckbill’s end, but northwest, where the blacktop meets unpaved lane. a hog confinement operator from ossian, iowa, showed up and put in his bid. out of concern that his land would be sold off to a confinement operation, the farmer stopped the sale, mccargar said.

“we were all extremely grateful for his choice to protect the neighborhood,” he said, “even if it cost him the ability to sell the land that he wanted to sell.”

a year later, the plot that became humble hands harvest went up for auction. to avoid what had happened at the other end of the road, mccargar convinced the neighborhood to scramble and scrimp to buy the land outright. fifteen families raised the $122,000 in six weeks, created hidden falls llc, and bought the property.

the land belonged to the neighborhood, and deed restrictions would keep the shares from being sold to confinement operations in the future. the next step, mccargar said: “what are we going to do with this now that we’ve bought it?”

wide lens 31% of farmland on the contiguous 48 states is rented out by non-operators, according to a 2016 study by the united states department of agriculture. less than 1% of that share is owned through estates, cooperatives, municipalities and non-profit organizations. the rest is rented out by individuals, partnerships, corporations or trusts.

starting humble hands harvest

breckbill had landed in decorah in 2010. she was working at another farm at the time, but had her own aspirations for a cooperative vegetable farm. first step — buying a hidden falls llc share. the land’s topsoil had been eroded from 30 years of “corn on corn,” she said, so the llc members agreed to plant hay and stop tilling in order to breathe some life into the spent soil and pick up a certified organic label.

breckbill borrowed some money from an uncle, emptied her savings and crowdfunded to buy up more shares and put in a well and electricity. she now has eight shares; her business partner emily fagan has another five and as a cooperative they intend to buy the remaining nine.

“ideal world is that our farm, as a worker-owned co-op, will make just a seamless transition from one generation to another,” breckbill said. it works like this: one member retires, another farm worker buys their shares, and so “the same business will stick with this land for a long time,” she said.

a replicable model?

breckbill thinks the worker-owned cooperative model can be duplicated outside decorah.
“the only hope of young farmers is figuring out a different way to access land, and having people with wealth, even small amounts of wealth, being able to help that happen,” she said.

as for mccargar, he references wendell berry, who came to speak in decorah in 1994. berry’s idea, said mccargar, is that if the economy is a forest then the tallest trees that eat up the sunshine are the biggest industries. once they fall, smaller plants will have space to grow.

“if we imagine what alternative agriculture practitioners and theorists and gardeners and small-scale farmers and organic producers are all trying to do, it’s to create that vibrant understory,” mccargar said.

but it takes money, he said: “it’s not something you can do on a shoestring. you have to be able to leverage capital for this purpose.”

humble hands harvest is crowdfunding to build a permanent house on the farm, but meanwhile breckbill lives in a yurt by the garden patch, where rows of radishes, turnips and napa cabbages poke their green heads out of the earth.

breckbill talks animatedly about the generational model of farming and her vision for a greener future while her orange cat, apricat, snoozes in a chair to her right. land acquisition is a huge problem, said breckbill, but it’s not insurmountable.

“people caring about what’s happening on the landscape around them — wherever that happens, i think that can be replicated in some way.”

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”

the average age of u.s. farmers is 57, but the number of farmers under 35 grew 11% from 2012 to 2017, according to the latest census from the united states department of agriculture (usda). young farmers made up 9% of u.s. farm producers as of 2017.

sustainable farming practices are on the rise as well. farmers are turning away from tilling practices that chop up and erode nutritious topsoil. the amount of heavily tilled land decreased nearly a quarter from 2012 to 2017 while no-till acreage increased 8%. cover crops, which help farmers reduce erosion and increase biodiversity on their soil, doubled in acreage in the same period.

land use for certified organic products is also up by 9% from 2016 to 2019, and people are eating it up — sales rose 31%.

despite the numbers, sustainability is still a huge term. melissa kenney, director of research and knowledge initiatives at the university of minnesota’s institute on the environment, tackles it in two parts: “sustainability is not just an environmental concept. it is a concept that involves both the environment and society interwoven together,” she said.

environmentally, sustainability means minimizing or eliminating pollution and leaving the planet in better condition for future generations. sustainability also means providing people with basic necessary resources, kenney said.

“you can’t have solutions that are good for the environment if they don’t also benefit people right now.”

farmers are trying new things like cover cropping, no-till, and organic farming to preserve and regenerate the land. none of these methods is a catch-all, and their effectiveness can vary depending on any one farm’s geography, said paul west, co-director and lead scientist of the global landscapes initiative at the university of minnesota’s institute on the environment.

“but certainly, having a bundle or a suite of these approaches all at once certainly can lead to healthier soils and fields,” he said.

to get to the point of experimentation, though, young farmers need resources. the obstacles they face are varied, but they need at least three things to get their foot in the door: land, income, and community support.

—

about this series: the planet forward-fao summer storytelling fellows work was sponsored by the north america office of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), and the fellows were mentored by lisa palmer, gw’s national geographic professor of science communication and author of “hot, hungry planet.”