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Daily Record - Winter 2021
Ag Journal
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Table of contents Water supply gets boost to start 2021 - PAGE 4 U.S. regulators OK genetically modified pig for food, drugs - PAGE 5 Fresh food initiatives feed, teach communities of color - PAGE 6 Seaweed industry stays afloat, seeks growth during pandemic - PAGE 8 Organic dairy farmers hope for better days with Biden - PAGE 9 Farm groups blast Trump competition rule as favoring meat giants - PAGE 10 2020 may have permanently altered how and what we eat - PAGE 12 Opportunities to close urban-rural divide - PAGE 14
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Water supply gets boost to start 2021
By KARL HOLAPPA staff writer An atmospheric river of precipitation has helped the Yakima Basin increase its water supply in January, making up for some shortages and starting 2021 off strong. According to the Jan. 14 Yakima Project Hydromet System Status Report, Lake Keechelus is at 52% capacity, with Lake Kachess coming in at 59% and Lake Cle Elum at 41%. Total capacity for all five reservoirs in the system is at 50%, putting total storage at 108% of average to date. The report states that inflow to the five reservoirs is 194% of average, and much of that can be attributed to the strong precipitation in January. Precipitation at the five reservoirs from Jan. 1 to Jan. 14 was 33.65 inches, a whopping 218% of average and 85% of the months average. Precipitation for the water year to date is 135.30 inches, or 110% of average. Snowpack in the basin has also been affected by the atmospheric river, with NRCS Snotel SWE for the Upper Yakima Basin reporting 127% of average.
Current Yakima Subbasin forecasts place Lake Keechelus at 101% of average, Kachess at 103% and Cle Elum also at 103%, with the system as a whole coming in at 102% forecast of average. Current Yakima Basin storage sits at 492,470 acre-feet, putting it on par for water years 2005 and 2017, and if weather predictions are accurate, the year could continue to improve through the winter. According to the January Bureau of Reclamation River Operations presentation, winter and spring seasons in the basin are predicted to have below average temperatures and above average precipitation. The bureau’s prediction states that La Niña is likely to continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter, with a 95% chance between January and March and into spring with a potential transition into spring, with 50% chance of neutral from April to June. “The La Niña mode is likely to kick in during January thru April, and that opens the door to more active weather, but also colder air from the Gulf and coming down from the North,” Meteorologist Phil Volker of Extended Range Forecasting said in the 4 | 2021 Ag Journal - Winter
presentation. “We have had late season snows the last several years, and it appears that potential is facing us again.” The BOR hydrologist said the favorable conditions have resulted in healthy storage levels in the five basin reservoirs and said the La Niña conditions give forecasters a reason to be optimistic about the water supply going forward. “As wet as it’s been and as good as it’s been for refill and the snowpack, the November and December percents of average were I think 85% and 90%,” he said. “It’s an interesting combination that even though they weren’t up to average, we did have a wet October that’s helped us along, carried us forward and really wetted up the ground. We’ve just had a good combination of weather, given that we were below average those two months. We have snowpack on the ground, and we have our reservoirs filling at the same time. I think it goes to show that if you get somewhere close to average, over 90%, we’re pretty good if we’re not digging out a big hole from the previous season.”
U.S. regulators OK genetically modified pig for food, drugs NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. regulators have approved a genetically modified pig for food and medical products, making it the second such animal to get the green light for human consumption. But the company behind it says there are no imminent plans to sell it for meat. The pig is genetically engineered to eliminate the presence of alpha-gal, a type of sugar found in many mammals. The sugar makes its way into many products — including medications, cosmetics and food — and can cause allergic reactions in some people. The main goal of the company behind the pig, United Therapeutics Corp., is to develop medical products, such as blood thinners, that won’t set off such reactions, said its spokesman Dewey Steadman. Eventually, the Silver Spring, Marylandbased firm hopes to develop a way for the pig’s organs to be transplanted into people. The pig, called GalSafe, also has commercial potential as food, but Steadman said the company doesn’t know when it might be able to secure an agreement with a meat producer to process and sell it. He noted the meat allergy the pig addresses, called alpha-gal syndrome, isn’t yet considered a major issue. “It’s known, but it’s not well known,” Steadman said. Health researchers don’t fully understand how the allergy develops, but it has been tied to bites from certain ticks. In 2009, there were 24 reported cases, but more recent estimates exceed 5,000 cases, according to a report by a working group for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Symptoms can include hives, itching, cramping and vomiting. Unlike other food allergies, alpha-gal reactions typically happen several hours after eating beef, pork or lamb, making it difficult to diagnose. Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the Center for Food Safety, noted that meat from the genetically modified pigs wasn’t tested in people with the allergies. “You’re offering it up as something they can eat, without knowing whether it
addresses their allergy,” Hanson said. The FDA said it didn’t evaluate allergyspecific food safety, since the company’s application didn’t include data on the preventing such reactions. The Center for Food Safety has sued the FDA over the first genetically modified animal the agency approved for human food — salmon engineered to grow faster. The group said it’s reviewing the agency’s decision on the GalSafe pig posted Monday. Greg Jaffe of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said the FDA’s approval of the GalSafe pig announced Monday is also concerning because it came without a chance for public comment. “Nobody was given notice, and all of a sudden there’s an approved animal,” he said. The company didn’t disclose exactly how it altered the animal’s DNA. Jaffe said the pig was produced by knocking out a gene responsible for producing the sugar and adding another that serves as a marker for the silenced gene. Jaffe said he’s not aware of any rules on how pork from genetically modified pigs would need to be labeled to be sold in supermarkets. A representative for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees meat labeling, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Steadman said the United Therapeutics pigs would be more difficult to produce than conventional pigs for meat because of requirements governing how they must be kept and slaughtered. He said there are about 25 GalSafe pigs at an Iowa farm. Long term, he said the goal is to combine the genetic modification with multiple other changes to make their organs acceptable for transplants in people. For years, researchers have been looking into the idea of transplanting pig organs as a way of eliminating shortages of donated organs. Though there aren’t any plans yet to sell meat from GalSafe pigs, the genetically modified salmon could become available in the U.S. soon. AquaBounty, the company that produces the fish, says it is determining the best time to harvest the salmon, which have been growing in indoor tanks at a plant in Indiana.
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Fresh food initiatives feed, teach communities of color By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY and ANITA SNOW Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Bruce Babcock only has to walk across the street from his house in a residential neighborhood to get to the 10-acre patch (40,500 square meters) of farmland where he labors to help feed his community. As a community garden coordinator, Babcock works with volunteer growers and food enthusiasts to provide enough freshly grown produce every week for hundreds of low-income Phoenix residents without access to much nutritional food. The Spaces of Opportunity neighborhood food system is among several initiatives launched in Phoenix in recent years, following other U.S. communities like Oakland, California; Detroit and Chicago where urban gardens aim to improve food options in racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods. The efforts have grown increasingly important with hunger across America on the rise amid the coronavirus pandemic. For example, more than 5 million people in Arizona filed unemployment claims this year and many worry where their next meal will come from.
The Arizona Department of Economic Security said as of October more than 900,000 people had applied for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Spaces of Opportunity works with the Roosevelt School District, the Orchard Community Learning Center, Unlimited Potential, the Tiger Foundation and the Desert Botanical Garden to produce and improve access to healthy food through farmers markets and distribution programs. It is located in south Phoenix, a predominantly Latino and Black community that public health officials call “food deserts” because of limited access to fresh produce and other healthy options. A map by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows such food deserts are widespread throughout Arizona and other parts of the Southwest. A lack of fresh food can cause people to depend on fast food and other items that can make them vulnerable to diet-linked health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Babcock began volunteering with the garden in 2015, after he experimented with an aquaponics project in his backyard. He began paying for a quarter-acre plot of his own shortly after that.
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Babcock said growers start out paying $5 a month for a quarter-acre and can later expand to a full acre plot. More than 60 gardeners now work there and as many as 200 have worked under Babcock since 2015. “We really slowed down over the summer and I was worried it wasn’t going to pick back up because of COVID-19,” Babcock said. But people returned in the fall when the triple-digit temperatures dropped and he opened up more land for gardeners. INTEREST IN NUTRITION Community interest in nutrition and food education has sparked some of the growth, said John Wann-Angeles, director of the Orchard Community Learning Center. Wann-Angeles, a former principal in the Roosevelt School District, said part of his interest comes from his earlier experiences working with children, hoping to keep educating young people to build a better future for their community. Wann-Angeles gathered one early fall morning with volunteers at a Roosevelt district elementary school, wrapping vegetarian burritos for the meals they deliver each Thursday to up to 175 people with modest resources. Bags stuffed with seasonal fruits and vegetables
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were also lined up for delivery. The recipients that day included residents of the Justa Center, which provides shelter, food and job services to people over 55 who have lived on the street. Justa Center Executive Director Wendy Johnson said the fresh fruits and vegetables from Spaces of Opportunity “are a treat among our residents.” “The strawberries are a favorite. The oranges are gone in minutes,” said Johnson, noting that residents are used to getting canned foods. “Food is a privileged item when you are poor.” Spaces of Opportunity farmland is also where former WNBA athlete, coach and executive Bridget Pettis operates Project Roots Arizona, the group she recently founded after she retired. Project Roots offers seasonal produce bags for free to residents in Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale and Glendale; sells garden boxes that people can use to grow their own produce at home; cooks soup for homeless people and sells vegetables at farmers markets throughout metro Phoenix. “There is a lack of access, but it’s a lack of knowledge and education about food in these areas that we are trying to address,” Pettis said. “That’s what Project Roots wanted to bring — the knowledge of food.” The International Rescue Committee, a leading resettlement agency for people who come to the U.S.
fleeing war and persecution, has a similar program in the Phoenix area called New Roots for refugees. New arrivals from countries such as Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan are given lots, seeds and guidance to grow crops such as tomatoes and watermelon to sell or add fresh, healthy options to their own family meals. Farm Express, another fresh food initiative, has taken a more accessible approach, converting a 40-foot (12-meter) city bus and a smaller shuttle into mobile markets selling fruits and vegetables at cost in disadvantaged Phoenix neighborhoods. “We’re trying to make sure working class families have the same access to the kind of produce the restaurants get, that are sold at farmer’s markets,” said Elyse Guidas, executive director of Activate Food Arizona that runs Farm Express. Activate Food Arizona buys the produce wholesale, then charges the same prices to shoppers who choose what they want from a list. Shoppers can use their government nutrition benefits, plus get a bit more produce for free through a program funded by a local grant. Matthew Forest, 32, said he was delighted by the low prices he found for fruits and vegetables at a recent stop Farm Express made next to a public housing project south of downtown Phoenix. It was the first time he and his girlfriend, Eboni Davis,
33, bought anything from the brightly painted former city bus. The closest grocery story is a 1 1/2-mile walk for Forest and Davis, who don’t have a car. “This has been a real experience,” Forest said after the couple spent less than $14 for a bunch of bananas, a few oranges, collard greens, a grapefruit, a butternut squash, a green apple, a red onion, strawberries and a few potatoes. “This is a lot less expensive than the supermarket,” Forest said before wheeling the produce home in a metal cart.
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Seaweed industry stays afloat, seeks growth during pandemic
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By PATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press S AC O , Ma i n e ( A P ) — T h e coronavirus pandemic has been a struggle for much of American seafood, but at least one sector of the industry has found a way to grow during the crisis — the seaweed business. Seaweed harvesting and farming, based largely along the rocky and chilly coast of Maine, has grown for several years as interest in foods and nutritional products made with the gooey marine algae have risen in popularity. Like many pieces of the seafood industry, seaweed is highly dependent on the restaurant sector, which made the pandemic a potentially major setback. B u t t h a t h a s n’t b e e n t h e case, according to state records and members of the industr y. Representatives for Atlantic Sea Farms, a Saco company that works with two dozen seaweed farmers and accounts for most of the seaweed aquaculture in the state, said it nearly doubled its harvest this year to 450,000 pounds. Other growers said they continued harvesting seaweed through the pandemic, though finding workers and buyers was more complicated than a typical year. The industry was able to pivot to selling more of its products via retail locations than restaurants, and that meant it avoided the trouble that befell other seafood industries, such as the hard-hit oyster business, said Tollef Olson, president of the Maine Seaweed Council. “Almost all the products we put out have been stabilized,” Olson said. “Some of the wholesale business definitely dropped off, but we’re seeing more shelf space, and more online platforms.” The statewide harvest of farmraised seaweed in Maine grew from about 50,000 pounds in 2018 to about 275,000 pounds last year, state records show. Atlantic Sea Farms alone thinks its farmers will harvest more than 800,000 pounds
in 2021. The seaweed is processed into products such as seaweed sauerkraut and frozen kelp cubes for smoothies. The state’s seaweed industry also includes a wild harvest of rockweed, which is used for livestock feed and fertilizers. The pandemic hit Maine right a ro u n d t h e s a m e t i m e a s t h e seaweed aquaculture business’s spring harvesting season, said Bri Warner, chief executive officer of Atlantic Sea Farms. Members of the industry have had to hustle to get seaweed products in new stores due to restaurant closures, and have had some success, she said. “Four ounces of a kelp in smoothie cubes is not the same as kelp on every salad in Sweetgreen that’s going out the door. We’re being very creative about how we sell,” Warner said. “We feel very good about being able to weather the storm.” The seaweed business’s ability to grow during the pandemic is an outlier within the U.S. seafood business. Consumer demand for seafood at restaurants dropped by more than 70% during the early months of the pandemic, and that sent troubling economic ripples through the business, according to one study published in the scientific journal Fish and Fisheries in November. The seaweed industry has been limited by restrictions on the amount of people who can work on farms, said Sarah Redmond, one of the owners of Springtide Seaweed, a Gouldsboro grower. Growers often grow the seaweed underwater on ropes in bays, and the work is labor intensive. However, the growth in people cooking at home, and looking to experiment with new ingredients, during the pandemic might have helped the seaweed trade, Redmond said. “We’ve actually seen an increase in demand for our seaweed products,” she said. “There’s still a demand for healthy food and healthy ingredients.”
Organic dairy farmers hope for better days with Biden KRISTEN LEIGH PAINTER Star Tribune Organic Valley, a leading voice in the nation’s organic dairy industry, sees an opportunity to regain political ground that it says was lost over the past four years. A flurry of interest groups are now jockeying to be heard by Presidentelect Joe Biden’s administration and are seeking clarity on what new congressional leadership could mean for them. Agriculture is a diverse industry filled with varying interests, but Bob Kirchoff, chief executive of La Farge, Wis.-based Organic Valley, is cautiously optimistic. “To say there wasn’t a lot of progress in the last four years would be an understatement. In some ways we took a step back,” said Kirchoff. “We need to look at this as an opportunity for change rather than be fearful nothing will change.” Organic Valley and its competitors often work together to push for clearer regulatory standards for organic food. The U.S. Department of Agriculture under President Donald Trump reversed several of those efforts, including a transitional organic certification program and animal welfare standards. “The reversal of decades of work on improving and updating the organic standards has led to declining consumer trust in the organic label and has caused economic hardship for U.S. organic farmers,” the Organic Trade Association wrote in a memo to Biden’s transition team. But the tide change in Washington, D.C., is about more than a new president. The long-serving chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, DFL Rep. Collin Peterson, who represented Minnesota’s Seventh District for 30 years, lost his bid for re-election. In his powerful position, he was responsible for passing a farm bill every five years aimed at helping rural economies. The Democratic Caucus approved Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., as Peterson’s replacement.
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“Collin (Peterson) could be credited with being the driving force in passing the last two to three farm bills because of his ability to broker deals,” said Adam Warthesen, Organic Valley’s director of government affairs. “His retirement shifts leadership to the South, and that changes the dynamics quite a bit. Ag policy is less about Republican vs. Democrat and more about where you are from.” Corn and soybeans are prioritized in the North, while cotton and peanuts are in the South, he said. “Dairy is probably not in as strong of a position as it was before. That’s not to say those leaders don’t care, but their familiarity with it is probably not as strong.” And while it “takes time to retrain the bureaucracy,” said Kirchoff, both he and Warthesen see Congress as fairly responsive to their concerns. Top of mind for Kirchoff is a normalization of trade relations in Asia, where Organic Valley sees growth opportunity. Even more so, the cooperative and some of its peer organizations are pushing hard for consistent enforcement and regulatory certainty on transitioning or growing a herd of organic dairy cows. USDA certifiers are often interpreting the standards differently, leaving some farmers who follow the more “true” interpretation of the organic standard at a competitive disadvantage, Warthesen said. The Organic Trade Association has made passing a final rule on the Origin of Organic Dairy Livestock a top priority. “While it isn’t Organic Valley specifically, it is us vs. them — meaning industrialized organic dairy,” Kirchoff said. “It’s affecting our individual farmers who are doing things right.” The organic dairy leadership recognizes their issues will be competing against a cacophony of voices trying to win over the incoming administration and congressional leadership. “We are going to keep going back and asking for it. We’ve been very persistent and we are going to continue to do so for as long as it takes,” Kirchoff said.
Farm groups blast Trump competition rule as favoring meat giants MIKE DORNING Bloomberg News Some farm groups criticized a long-delayed competition rule the Trump administration announced in early December as favoring big meatpacking and poultry processors and leaving small farmers and ranchers vulnerable to unfair treatment in selling livestock. The National Farmers Union and R-CALF USA, both more closely aligned with smaller producers, said the regulations will make it harder to prevail on claims meat giants have abused their market power at a time
when four large corporations control about 80% of U.S. beef processing. They called on the incoming Biden administration to reverse the regulation, which will go into effect nine days before Donald Trump leaves office. The meat industry is facing increased scrutiny of its business practices, with the U.S. Justice Department earlier this year opening an antitrust probe of beef companies and bringing criminal charges against poultry-industry executives for price-fixing. Chickfil-A Inc., the leading U.S. chicken restaurant chain, sued major poultry processors earlier this month, joining Target Corp., Wawa Inc. and other companies 10 | 2021 Ag Journal - Winter
accusing them of a price-fixing scheme. Biden in his presidential campaign criticized the impact of agribusiness consolidation on farmers’ ability to get fair prices for their products, and pledged to strengthen federal antitrust enforcement and U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations on competition. Undue Preference The new rule clarifies what constitutes an “undue� preference by a meatpacker for one farmer over another in purchasing livestock under the 99-yearold Packers and Stockyards Act, passed after a federal investigation revealed market manipulation exploiting
farmers. Congress in 2008 had called for a regulation on the issue but the Trump administration withdrew a proposed rule released near the end of Barack Obama’s presidency. The new regulation defines an undue preference as one that cannot be justified through cost savings, meeting a competitor’s offer or as “a reasonable business decision.” Rob Larew, president of the National Farmers Union, said the new regulation not only fails to protect farmers but shields corporations against legal liability for discriminatory actions. “These corporations have immense economic resources and political clout, which means they call the shots — and when they behave unfairly, as they often do, they usually face no repercussions,” Larew said in an emailed statement. “Rather than offer farmers the very basic safeguards they’ve been asking for, USDA’s rule will inexplicably offer even more power to meatpackers, further tipping the scales in their favor.”
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But Julie Anna Potts, president of the North American Meat Institute, a trade association for meatpackers, said the new regulation “recognizes the importance of marketing agreements and other, similar tools used by producers and packers and provides some guidance and clarity,” though it “introduces some uncertainty.” R-CALF USA chief executive officer Bill Bullard said the rule “undermines the purpose” of the law. “The producers’ burden will shift from proving a packer violated the Act to now having to prove the packer does not qualify for any of the various safe harbors the USDA has created to protect packers from effective enforcement,” Bullard said in a emailed statement. Greg Ibach, undersecretary of a g r i c u l t u re f o r m a rk e t i n g a n d regulatory programs, said the rule will “further clarify USDA’s enforcement mechanisms” and “ultimately work to benefit everyone in the supply chain.
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2020 may have permanently altered how and what we eat ALEXIA ELEJALDE-RUIZ Chicago Tribune There were moments, early in the pandemic, when Joseph Musillami wasn’t sure how the family business would make it. Purely Meat Co., a commercial butcher in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park neighborhood that supplies mostly high-end restaurants, saw sales plummet 75% when the state banned indoor dining in March. It halted plans to expand into a 35,000-square-foot facility purchased late last year and more than double its current footprint, and let go of many of its 60 employees. “It started out beyond scary when you think you’re going to lose your house,” said Musillami, whose wife, Maribel Moreno-Musillami, founded the company nine years ago. Surviving 2020 felt like a “street fight,” Musillami said. But for all the struggles, he thinks the meat company will come out on top. His wife created a website to sell Purely Meat’s products directly to consumers, and soon it became a major part of the business. The company’s drivers deliver cases of vacuum-sealed, freezerready prime cuts to people’s suburban doorsteps rather than the city’s swank downtown restaurants. Going into 2021 it plans to help restaurants sell branded products to consumers as well. “These are two new facets of our business that we would never have dreamed of doing,” Musillami said. In various pockets of the food industry, a bruising year is giving way to optimism that the lessons learned will make for a stronger 2021. Farmers and other food producers that pivoted their business models to find new revenue streams are making some of those changes permanent. Grocery stores are adapting to consumers’ embrace of online food shopping. And restaurants that survive the wreckage of their industry are expected to come roaring back, sharper and leaner than ever, into the waiting arms of a public desperate to go out. Purely Meat plans to maintain its new consumer business even as it prepares for a midsummer restaurant rebound, Musillami said. The company also introduced seasoned meats, improved
worker training and figured out how to run the business more efficiently. It has recaptured 70% of its usual sales and has 40 employees working. “I think we are going to be better,” Musillami said. OPPORTUNITIES AT THE FARM Small farms see new opportunities too. While the local foods movement has been growing for a decade, the pandemic gave it a shot in the arm as people sought to support community and became more aware of quality as they cooked at home. Empty grocery store shelves also revealed the potential for supply chain disruptions and prompted shoppers to explore buying directly from local farms, which were reeling from the disruption of restaurant and other food service clients and needed new revenue streams. Some farms, especially those near cities, dove into e-commerce to sell directly to consumers, and customers were patient as they worked out the kinks, said Raghela Scavuzzo, associate director of food systems development at
the Illinois Farm Bureau. Milk delivery made a comeback. Community Supported Agriculture programs, which deliver boxes of produce, found new customers. Farmers collaborated to deliver their products together to reduce costs and created bundled boxes to sell at farmers markets. “They built this idea that they can promote each other and boost sales,” Scavuzzo said. “I think you’re going to see more of that going forward.” Meanwhile, the pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in the meat industry that revived interest in local meat processing. A bottleneck formed when large slaughterhouses faced outbreaks of COVID-19 among their workers and temporarily closed or slowed down, leaving farmers with nowhere to send their market-ready livestock. Meat processing capacity in the U.S. is highly centralized, and the disruption created such a backlog farmers still can’t get appointments to slaughter their animals until late 2021 or into 2022. Farmers, in response, have called for
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expanding capacity at local processors or establishing new ones, which could reinvigorate local rural economies, said Tasha Bunting, associate director of commodity and livestock programs at the Illinois Farm Bureau. “There’s a lot of conversations in a lot of different parts of the state where groups are trying to develop something that could be a success,” Bunting said. “A year from now there will be a few more (processors) that are close to where the producers are.” FOOD SHOPPING FROM HOME Grocery chains, which benefited greatly this year as people rediscovered their kitchens, recently released 2021 food trend projections that reflect the pandemic’s influence on what people want to eat. Kroger predicts a rise in foods that purport to support immune health, boost energy levels or mitigate stress — think sparkling probiotic kefir water or almond butter containing “superfoods” like chia seeds and goji berries — as
well as easy-to-prepare comfort foods and plant-based options. Whole Foods expects people to spend more time on breakfast, perhaps whipping up sous vide egg bites midweek, plus interest in different cooking oils and re-imagined basics like hearts-of-palm pasta. Yet the pandemic’s greatest impact on grocery stores may not be what they sell, but how they sell it. Consumers who previously might not have trusted others to pick their avocados gave online grocery shopping a shot and many of them are expected to become permanent converts. In a September poll of 60,000 consumers, 43% said they had purchased groceries online in the past six months, up from 24% who said the same two years earlier, and nearly half said they plan to continue to do so. Online shopping is expected to account for 21% of grocery sales by 2025, or $250 billion, a 60% increase over pre-pandemic estimates, according to the poll from Mercatus, a grocery e-commerce platform, and Incisiv, a consumer insights firm. Forrester, a research and consulting firm, said it expects retailers and brands
to invest heavily in microfulfillment centers and “dark stores” dedicated to fulfilling online orders. While grocery delivery was popular as people avoided leaving their homes, the bigger opportunity is in curbside pickup, which costs less, experts say. Many stores are designating parking spots for pickup and installing pickup lockers. Phil Lempert, a grocer y store consultant known as The Supermarket Guru, predicts that, long-term, stores will be half as big as they are now, and people will have to make a reservation to come in to prevent crowding. Shoppers will select fresh meats, bakery and produce items while a robot in a backroom fulfillment center picks the shelf-stable items they ordered online ahead of time. “I think it will be a much better experience,” Lempert said. OPTIMISM AT RESTAURANTS The start of vaccinations has the restaurant industry optimistic that a euphoric recovery will arrive by summer. “You will have a lot of jubilation and celebration and reasons to get together,” said R.J. Melman, president of Lettuce
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Entertain You Enterprises, the Chicagobased restaurant group behind RPM, Beatrix, Shaw’s Crab House and many others. Still, corporate travel will be slower to return, so downtown restaurants that rely on business from conventions and hotel guests may continue to struggle, Melman said. Industry watchers expect most restaurants to be back to 80% of normal sales in six months but hotels won’t regain normal occupancy levels until 2023 or 2024, said Ron Swidler, chief innovation officer at The Gettys Group, a Chicago-based restaurant and hotel design firm. While neighborhoods mourn the closure of favorite restaurants, the empty storefronts will offer opportunities for surviving restaurateurs and a new wave of entrepreneurs, Swidler said. Lettuce Entertain You, which has more than 120 restaurants across the country, is evaluating more potential locations that it was a year ago, Melman said. “The good real estate will be gobbled up,” Melman said. Meanwhile, some of the efficiencies and innovations restaurants introduced to survive the pandemic are likely
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to endure because they are good for business. Virtual catering and family-style takeout dinners will remain as long as customers want them, Melman said. Menus will be shorter as restaurants focus on what they do best, Swidler said. Takeout and delivery will be better executed. More automation in the kitchens will help reduce labor costs, which could make it less expensive to operate a restaurant and encourage more to open, Swidler said. “I am absolutely betting that we will come out of this with better restaurants,” he said. Some pandemic solutions will be sent packing. Fast-casual eateries might opt to keep menus digital, but finer dining establishments will scrap the QR codes and return to printed menus that are part of the physical experience people crave, said Doug Roth, president of Playground Hospitality, a restaurant and hotel consultancy. “People will want to feel the soul of a restaurant and the comfort of a restaurant,” Roth said. “I think next year fourth quarter is going to be off the charts.”
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Opportunities to close urban-rural divide DANIEL MOORE Pittsburgh Post-Gazette WASHINGTON, D.C. — For Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., the COVID-19 pandemic has showed the value — and vulnerability — of regions such as Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District: a 14-county expanse of rural farmland, forests and recreation areas dotted with a major land grant university, energy production and manufacturing. Thompson, entering his seventh term in Congress as the longest-serving Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania, said he recognizes the challenges facing his swath of north-central Pennsylvania. He’s put in a dozen years on the powerful House Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over not only farm policy but a wide array of rural programs on food assistance, housing, utilities and
economic development. It assembles the sprawling farm bill, one of the biggest and most contentious pieces of legislation on Capitol Hill when it comes up for a vote every five years. In January, Thompson, 61, will ascend to the top Republican seat on the powerful panel, giving him the chance to wield greater influence to shape the U.S. food system and narrow gaps between urban and rural parts of the state and country. “Without a robust rural economy and a strong agriculture program in this country, people all over America, including in cities, are going to wake up cold, in the dark, and hungry,” Thompson said, laying out his agenda in broad strokes in a recent interview. “It’s a tremendous amount of responsibility and opportunity,” Thompson said. The agriculture
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committee “probably impacts people’s lives on a daily basis more than any other committee in Congress.” Thompson, who was first elected in 2008 after 28 years as a therapist and licensed nursing home administrator, said he wants to target infrastructure development as a way to stem population decline in rural areas and attract business. He pointed to his experience on the panel’s subcommittees, and on the House Education and Labor Committee, to push for investments in telemedicine, broadband expansion and remote learning. In 2011, he introduced legislation, eventually signed into law by President Barack Obama, that expanded telemedicine services among active duty military service members. In 2017, he sponsored another bill that expanded telemedicine throughout the Veterans Affairs health care system. To expand these services in broader rural areas, he has said, there must be access to high-speed internet but also aid that makes it affordable to providers and consumers. In June, he introduced a measure to codify Medicare reimbursement for community health centers and rural health clinics to provide telemedicine services — making permanent some of a temporary benefit enacted during the pandemic. “The issue does come down to connectivity, obviously, but it comes to other issues, such as reimbursement,” he said in September. “If you’re able to access the right providers, you’re getting high-quality care no matter where you live.” HELP TO FARMERS The success of rural areas depends on helping farmers navigate what has been a turbulent stretch. The virus has disrupted the broader food supply chain, with restaurants shutting down and food pantries overwhelmed with demand from hungry families, he said. Ev e n b e f o r e t h e p a n d e m i c , Pennsylvania farmers struggled with low prices caused in part by the Trump
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administration’s trade war with China, whose government effectively blocked U.S. soybean shipments for about 18 months in retaliation. The dairy industry, which makes up roughly a third of Pennsylvania’s farm sales, has been awash in milk for years, mostly due to overproduction and consumers flocking to alternative nondairy milks. The agriculture committee has purview over the complex system of farm subsidies and aid, including a program that provides payments to dairies when their margins fall below a certain level. When COVID-19 hit, the government set up the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which has provided more than $19 billion to farmers through direct payments and through purchasing and distribution of produce, dairy and meat to places that need it most. Thompson said the committee should hold hearings and listening sessions on ways to make the food system more resilient, he said. Lessons learned from the pandemic should be part of the next farm bill, scheduled to come up in 2023. Meeting with farmers about the pandemic program so far, he said, “the feedback I’ve gotten has been very, very positive.” A small-government Republican, Thompson has said he knows farmers’ top goal is to get their product to a buyer — not government checks. In the longer term, he said, the government should help farmers invest in their business, like aid to help dairy farmers, for example, buy processing equipment that can produce more lucrative cheese. He praised President Donald Trump’s partial trade deal with China, signed in January, which put a hold on the trade war and directed China to accelerate purchases of American farm goods, among other U.S. exports. (The pandemic put a damper on those lofty goals, and China has fallen behind its commitments this year.) He said he would continue to advocate for trade deals with the United Kingdom, and across Europe and Asia. “They have
into partisan disputes, led Pennsylvania’s Republican delegation last month in challenging the state’s administration of the election, repeating Trump’s baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud. Thompson, in the interview, said there “may have been abuses” and that voter fraud may have occurred “in small pieces, perhaps, small parcels,” but “the transition is preceding” to allow President-elect Joe Biden to take office next month. He emphasized he wants to move forward after “the politics of 2020” sidelined important measures. He called the committee’s new chair, Rep. David Scott, a Georgia Democrat representing the Atlanta suburbs, “a gentleman and a statesman, and I’m looking forward to our work together.” The former chair, Rep. Collin Peterson, lost his reelection bid after 30 years representing rural western Minnesota. Peterson was among 13 Democrats whose seats were flipped, narrowing their House majority. “In some sense, that will put us in a position where the majority party will be motivated to work with us,” Thompson said. “We tend to be bipartisan.”
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far more stomachs they need to fill,” he said. He said he intends on meeting the climate change challenge by maintaining forests and encouraging farmers to use precision agriculture to conserve resources and maintain healthy soil. Overseeing those practices, the agriculture committee is “responsible for the largest carbon sinks in the world,” he said, referring to their ability to store carbon currently in the atmosphere. Thompson, whose district has the most abandoned mine land in the country, has led the charge to extend the federal program that funds cleanup projects, fighting a dueling proposal from Wyoming lawmakers to cut the program by 35%. But he has questioned the need for more regulations on the energy industry, suggesting during a webinar in June that unfavorable news coverage and environmental groups opposing natural gas had been covertly fueled by Russians bent on disrupting America’s energy supply. He has criticized Democrats’ climate change proposals as unrealistic and economically destructive. Thompson, who tends to avoid wading
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