By Britny Cordera for Yes! Magazine.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson for Michigan News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

At Sanctuary Farms on Detroit's East Side, Jøn Kent and a team of volunteers use cardboard and paper bags to starve invasive weedy plants instead of using herbicides; they plant marigolds and lavender amid squash, melons, and collards instead of using pesticides; and they turn food scraps into lush, clean compost.

Kent and his business partner, Jean Parker, wanted to grow fresh produce for their working-class community, which Kent describes as a "food desert." They also wanted to make sure their farming practices didn't contribute to the area's water pollution crisis.

"In Michigan, we have been left with polluted waters in Black neighborhoods from Benton Harbor to Flint," he said. So Kent and Parker, who launched Sanctuary Farms in 2020, turned to regenerative agriculture practices, like alternating flowers with crops to attract pollinators and repel pests, to have a positive impact on the environment.

"The goal here is to really create a food-sovereign, energy-efficient, zero-waste place, so our community knows it's possible to live off the land," said Kent.

Many young farmers share Kent's commitment to sustainability, according to a new report from the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC). In a survey of over 10,000 farmers across the country, 86% of respondents under 40 said they used regenerative farming practices, which the survey defined as "an approach to farming and ranching that builds healthy soils and ecosystems, supports climate-resilient farms and communities, and addresses inequity in agriculture."

Of course, as the survey notes, regenerative farming practices aren't new. Indigenous communities-many of whom were pushed off the land they stewarded for millennia-innovated and practiced these farming techniques for thousands of years.

"Young farmers today find motivation to farm in environmental conservation; anti-racism; and creating healthy, food-secure, and climate-resilient communities," said Vanessa García Polanco, NYFC's policy campaign director.

Overhauling the United States' agriculture system will be crucial to meeting its climate goals. Farms cover about 40% of all U.S. land, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture, and agriculture accounts for about 11% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

Some regenerative farming practices, such as no-till farming, cover cropping, and rotational grazing, can help the U.S. reduce those emissions.

But young farmers-particularly young farmers of color-need more support.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said finding affordable land to buy was "very or extremely challenging." Among those those who identified as Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), that figure was 65%. Respondents also reported difficulty accessing capital, affording health care, and paying off student loans. In all cases, BIPOC respondents reported greater difficulties than their white counterparts.

These challenges may explain why more young people aren't taking up the profession. The average age of a U.S. farmer is over 57 and is steadily increasing, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture. According to that report, less than 8% of farmers are under age 35.

Kent, 29, spent his early childhood in Detroit. "My community is often hit with the reality that the government doesn't always come through for us," said Kent, who is Black. Kent, who only recently paid off his student loans, said accessing capital to finance Sanctuary Farms was a challenge, but added, "In spite of our lack of finances, we have faith. We just gotta keep puttin' in that work."

Climate change poses another challenge. More than 73% of respondents said they experienced at least one "climate impact," in the form of extreme weather, hotter temperatures, or excess precipitation on their farm, in the past year. That figure is up from 66% in 2017, the last time NYFC released a survey.

For some, climate change has wrought devastation.

Carolina Mueller, a farmer from Austin, Texas, and coalition manager with NYFC, said she suffered over $30,000 in losses when a winter storm in February 2021 froze much of the state.

"Winter Storm Uri last year was incredibly traumatic and damaging," Mueller said. "Temperatures plummeted quickly, and we lost a lot of our livestock and produce." All three members of the Texas NYFC chapter decided to stop farming after Uri.

For those young farmers across the country who continue to farm, there is an increased awareness of the need to adapt to the changing climate, said Debi Kelly, a field specialist and horticulturist with the University of Missouri's extension program.

"Some of those old ways of agriculture can't continue anymore," said Kelly. "With all these weather events and with population growth, we have to learn how to do things a little bit differently."

Kelly said younger farmers she works with tend to be more willing to take risks and change their practices than older farmers. She said she also noticed younger farmers tend to be more concerned with how their operations affect their surrounding communities. According to the NYFC survey, 83% of young farmers reported that "one of their farm's primary purposes for existing is engaging in conservation or regeneration."

The NYFC report comes out as lawmakers are debating the 2023 Farm Bill, a massive omnibus bill that goes before Congress roughly every five years and includes farm subsidies, climate resilience initiatives, and food assistance programs.

If the U.S. is to meet its climate goal by 2030, which requires a reduction of 50% to 52% in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels, Polanco said she believes it will need a transformative farm bill, one that addresses the climate crisis and the rising costs of land.

Land is climate infrastructure for our young farmers," Polanco said. But land costs are soaring. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), farmland values increased by $420 per acre, or more than 12%, in 2021. The report, which notes that "land ownership is rooted in the dispossession of Indigenous land," calls on the USDA to support Indigenous communities in securing greater land sovereignty and for the agency to seat the Tribal Advisory Committee, a body created in 2018 to facilitate coordination between Native groups and the federal government.

Polanco said she'd like to see a farm bill that invests in community-led projects, prioritizing projects led by and benefiting socially disadvantaged and economically distressed farmers and ranchers. She said a successful bill would also invest in climate-smart farming adaptations.

These adaptations would look like an expansion of programs, like the USDA's recently launched Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative, which supports the production and marketing of climate-smart commodities; increases funding for first-time farmers and ranchers, and improves access to crop insurance programs. The Inflation Reduction Act, which set aside $20 billion for USDA conservation programs, presents an important opportunity for young farmers as well.

Getting young, climate-conscious farmers on the land "is the best way we can fight climate change," Polanco said. "But we desperately need climate investments that are part of a safety net for farmers, so they can continue stewarding the land when a disaster strikes."

Britny Cordera wrote this article for Yes! Magazine.


get more stories like this via email

School buses are getting cleaner in Washington state after this year's legislative session.

Lawmakers in Olympia passed House Bill 1368, which will fund the purchase of zero emission school buses.

Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island, said the program is getting off the ground quickly.

"As we work towards that long-term goal of all new school buses being zero emission, we're kick-starting this year with $40 million in grants to school districts in overburdened communities," Senn explained.

Going forward, Senn noted school districts will have to purchase zero-emission vehicles once the total cost of ownership is equal to or lower than the cost of diesel vehicles. The state is leveraging the state's Climate Commitment Act resources to fund the transition of its 10,000 school buses.

Devin Denney, director of transportation for Highline Public Schools in King County, which already has electric school buses in its fleet, said he has driven the electric buses and talked about some of their benefits from a driver's perspective.

"You're not competing against that engine noise, the kids aren't competing against the engine noise," Denney observed. "It's a much quieter bus all the way around. The major advantage, of course, is that there's no tailpipe emissions with an electric bus, so our kids' health is better protected."

Senn emphasized health studies have shown there are negative health effects from diesel vehicles for kids, and it is easy to understand why.

"If you think about kids waiting to get on their bus in front of an elementary school and you have this line of buses idling, letting out diesel fumes right at the height of a little child, it becomes obvious that this is probably not the most healthy thing for our children," Senn added.


get more stories like this via email

Today, in honor of Earth Day, climate advocates are asking California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom to rally around a plan to put a $15 billion bond measure on the November ballot.

If passed, the bond measure would fund a range of climate resiliency measures.

Sam Hodder, president and CEO of the Save the Redwoods League, said March was the tenth month in a row to break monthly heat records.

"I think Earth Day is a terrific opportunity for the broader public to recognize how nature is critical for resilience, for our quality of life, for our mental and physical health, and for our communities more broadly," Hodder outlined.

Two similar bills to put a bond measure on the ballot are under consideration in Sacramento, Assembly Bill 1567 and Senate Bill 867, but they have been stalled since last summer. The bond would finance many programs, including some to restore wetlands that guard against sea-level rise, and to remove dead wood in forests to guard against mega-fires, which Hodder noted have killed 20% of the giant sequoias in recent years.

Opponents pointed out the state already faces a budget deficit and cannot afford to take on more debt. But only 5% of California's old-growth coastal redwoods remain, mostly due to aggressive logging many decades ago.

Hodder argued the giant trees can be critical ingredients in the fight against climate change because they trap so much carbon.

"Redwood forests sequester more carbon per acre than any other forest system in the world," Hodder emphasized. "We have the opportunity to transition the redwood forest from something that is vulnerable to climate change to something that is helping to solve and address the climate crisis."

Experts blame climate change for California's wild weather over the past few years, which has been marked by extreme drought, devastating fires and flooding rain.

A new report from the National Wildlife Federation warns that the effects of climate change in the Quad Cities, along the Iowa-Illinois border, will be severe.

But researchers got the public involved in studying to find ways to head off some of the most pressing concerns.

The report says climate change means a warmer, wetter future for the Quad Cities, which straddle the Mississippi River in Iowa and Illinois.

But rather than repeat what experts have already been saying about drastic flooding along the Big Muddy, Prairie Rivers Network River Health and Resiliency Organizer Nina Struss said researchers and Quad Cities residents brainstormed solutions to tackle the effects of climate change.

"Flooding and flash flooding were the top concerns," said Struss. "Extreme heat was also a big concern, as well as drought and other extreme weather events."

Researchers combined that information with hard science at the University of Illinois to create 3D models depicting what climate-induced flooding along the Mississippi could look like in the future.

The survey also asked people to identify which geographical areas and populations are most at risk from the effects of climate change, and worked with the community on solutions to mitigate some of them.

Struss said this research proposes what are known as nature-based solutions to combat the effects of climate change - restoring, preserving and even expanding existing ecosystems, like wetlands and tree canopies. But creating more eco-friendly infrastructure, too.

"Can we work to maybe have our pavements that we're putting in be more permeable, so that they can absorb that water and have that higher water-holding capacity?" said Struss. "Can we focus on areas to plant more native plants that have stronger root systems, versus ones that have shorter root systems, to help with that water-holding capacity?"

Struss said this research isn't a one-off. It will continue to change, she said, as the climate changes, the needs become more clear, and the effects more drastic.

She said progress in addressing climate change relies on more research, education and funding.




get more stories like this via email