Sustainable Agriculture & Food Policy

New research from Stanford scientists shows that farmers in Europe will see crop yields affected as global temperatures rise, but that adaptation can help slow the decline for some crops.

A dairy farmer for over 40 years, Richard Beal became one of the state’s first organic dairy farmers 17 years ago. However, producing milk—even organic milk—as a commodity that is sold with a small profit margin to a processor has taken a serious financial toll. Now he struggles with how to pass the farm onto his son, Adam, without putting either of them into crushing debt or forcing them to sell land to developers. His daughter, Amanda, is a food systems consultant and married to a budding cheese-maker who offers a possible new way forward.

Kendra Klein has co-authored a report on redefining healthy food in the health care for Health Care Without Harm. Healthy food cannot be defined by nutritional quality alone. It is the end result of a food system that conserves and renews natural resources, advances social justice and animal welfare, builds community wealth, and fulfills the food and nutrition needs of all eaters now and into the future.

You know intuitively that organic food is good for you and that it’s the healthiest choice you can make at the farmer’s market and grocery store. Your gut tells you that organic is better for you than food sprayed with synthetic toxic pesticides designed to kill insects, fungus, and weeds. It’s the absence of these dangerous chemicals in organic agriculture that consumers believe makes organic food inherently healthier—and rightly so.

Out of that experiment grew Santa Barbara Aquaponics and a 35-foot-long, self-funded system that Childerely calls a “boutique showroom option” to demonstrate how the approach could be incorporated into both large agriculture operations and the average homeowner’s backyard. Work on the second system has begun, and Childerley hopes to build two more in the same space in the coming months. “There’s so much disillusion with the future when it comes to food shortages and drought,” Childerley said. “I see this as a vehicle of hope.