2020 Brought an abundance of exciting engagements. We took a moment to reflect on the meaningful work completed and ponder projects on the horizon.

Sunflowers deserve a second look. With superior biomass production (read: carbon capture) and better drought resistance than the current reigning kings of American agriculture, corn and soy, this crop has already expanded to ~46 million acres in Europe and is well-positioned for similar growth here. The primary barrier to broader adoption is a dearth of processing infrastructure - just 5 plants confined to 3 states.

Pandemic-driven health concerns fueled elderberries’ first resurgence in 2010 (53% annual growth tired to HIN1). Over the last decade, double-digit annual demand growth continued causing Midwestern growers and researchers to take another look at this ancient crop, conducting and publishing some of the first variety trials in decades. Other researchers at UVM note the crop’s strong functional potential as a harvest-able, high-value crop well-suited to cultivation as part of riparian buffer plantings. COVID concerns have added further fuel to this crop’s growth with an over 400% growth in sales YOY. Can this crop contribute to solving both human and environmental health concerns?

Regenerative agriculture has been getting a lot of hype. But, when it comes down to it, the practices needed to start regenerating soil are relatively straightforward - growing winter small grains and winter legumes to replace synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. Since 2017, I have been engaged with the Sustainable Food Lab and the Practical Farmers of Iowa’s Feed Chains and Small Grains work. This past year, buoyed by Conservation Innovation Grant funding the group has made some exciting progress in modeling the scale up these basic regenerative approaches. We met yesterday at Target’s headquarters in Minneapolis to review what’s possible on the farm level and what’s needed from the business side from commodity companies to CPGs to support the shift.

Regional food systems can contribute to advancing production values rewarded by third-party certifications, but demonstrating alignment can be challenging for smaller-scale producers, distributors, and food service providers in the Mid-Atlantic. Join the discussion next Tuesday to learn what some of those challenges are and how supply chain partners can work together to over come them.

Start-ups in the hot Controlled Environment Agriculture space have tremendous opportunity to deliver transparency as they build programs to protect and grow consumers’ positive food safety perception of the industry.