A federal act that went into place on the first of this year is causing some concern among farmers across Michigan.
According to the Michigan Consumer Protection Department, the Corporate Transparency Act was put in place to prevent criminals from exploiting their ownership stake in American companies to covertly commit financial crimes.
The act required businesses to disclose information about their beneficial owners to the United States Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. This reporting included small businesses that fit certain criteria, including owners of farms.
“I’ve had people who said they have been a little bit reluctant,” said Chris Bardenhagen, a managing educator for the MSU Extension. “It’s just like
any other regulation that is required for a business, though some people are hesitant to give the government more information.”
Bardenhagen said that the act was made to comply with an international obligation for the U.S. to crack down on money laundering and fraud from organized crime.
The actual filing for the act Bardenhagen said takes around 10 minutes and it involves reporting information related to the owner of a business. He emphasized that sole proprietors do not need to file, but individually owned LLCs do. Other requirements and exemptions for businesses to file can be found at www. fincen.gov/.
Bardenhagen also wrote up an article for the MSU Extension explaining more in detail what reporting intails and who needs to report. That article can be found at https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/ corporate-transparency-act-farm-andag-businesses-must-report-beginning-
january-1-2024.
“Because this is being used to crack down on criminal activity, there are some serious penalties for not reporting,” said Bardenhagen. “People don’t want to give more information than they need to, but what I try to explain to the farmers who ask about it, is that it’s not worth it for small businesses and farmers to face the penalty for not reporting.”
These penalties include $500 for each day that the violation continues and potential criminal penalties of up to two years imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000. Bardenhagen added that these penalties are in place to target businesses with criminal intent, not to harm businesses and farms.
Businesses that are required to report that started before Jan. 1, 2024, have until Jan. 1, 2025, to report. Businesses that are required to report that started in 2024 have 90 days to report and businesses that start after 2025 have 30 days to report.
There was a recent court ruling from a U.S. District Court Judge in Alabama that ruled it unconstitutional. This ruling is outside of the state of Michigan so for the time being farmers and businesses in the state will have to still file.
Bardenhagen said that for anything to change here in the state, the ruling will have to go all the way to the Supreme Court before anything really changes. Additionally, he said that since the U.S. has an obligation internationally to regulate businesses to crack down on money laundering, something will need to be in place and will still require people to report or be regulated.
For farms and businesses that need to report or have questions about reporting, contact Bardenhagen at 231-866-1959 or by email at bardenh1@msu.edu.
Additionally, any member of the MSU Extension Farm Business Management Team can be contacted with questions. Contact information for them can be found at https://www.canr.msu.edu/ farm_management/experts.
This year’s warmer winter temperatures have allowed some maple syrup producers across the U.S. to begin tapping their trees as much as two months early. In Wisconsin, the fourth-largest maple syrup producing state, many farmers started production in January and February, earlier than they can ever remember doing it. As climate change leads to warmer temperatures, these unpredictable winters may become more and more common in parts of Wisconsin. But many producers are committed to the traditions that strengthen their bonds with their “sugarbushes,” making this practice more resilient than others that are threatened by the slow melting of the North American winter.
Jeremy Solin doesn’t need a jacket right now on his family farm in northern Wisconsin. There’s no snow blanketing the dead leaves in the grove of sugar maples. There, pails already hang beneath spiles in the trunks that have started dripping sap. And the ground is muddy — a sign of the spring thaw.
But the timing is all off. “It’s just very disorienting,” he said.
He isn’t the only maple syrup producer feeling this way. In many parts of Wisconsin and the Midwest this year, the warmest winter on record drove farmers and hobbyists alike to start collecting tree sap for maple syrup a month or more earlier than they normally would.
Experts say that the shift in maple syrup season could be one clear indicator of the ways climate change is affecting trees, but they also think the practice serves as an important motivation to preserve forests.
Producers have deeply personal ties to their land, whether they are Indigenous producers serving their community or have familyrun operations and want to leave a legacy for the next generation. That relationship between people and their maple trees may ultimately make people more willing to adapt and be resilient in the face of seasonal
changes.
“Maple trees have sustained humans for centuries,” said Eli Suzukovich III, an assistant professor of instruction at Northwestern University who teaches a class on maple syrup and climate change. “Now maybe it’s just our turn to return the favor.”
With the arrival of spring, maple trees start to “wake up” from the dormant state that keeps them alive through the winter. But during the critical few weeks of early spring where it’s above freezing during the day and below freezing at night, the trees use their sugar in sap as a kind of antifreeze. Humans have been taking advantage of that process for millennia, collecting the clear, watery sap that flows in early spring and boiling it down to condense it into maple syrup or maple sugar.
But timing is everything. Tapping the trees too soon, especially with the spile-and-bucket method, doesn’t work, because the holes start to
close up after a few weeks. The more common commercial method, which involves a series of plastic tubing often called “lines” that snake from tree to tree and ferry the sap in huge quantities, is a bit more forgiving of tapping early but still requires strategic planning.
That’s why producers were caught by surprise this year — they typically plan for mid-March or April, but as they checked the weather this unprecedentedly warm January, they realized the sap had already started flowing. About 40 miles away from Solin, syrup producers missed the first run of sap on Bodwéwadmi Ktëgan, the farm of the Forest County Potawatomi tribe. Joe Shepard, the assistant farm manager there who’s lived in northern Wisconsin his whole life, said he can’t remember a winter like this, with no snow.
Neither can Karl Martin, dean of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension. Martin’s family taps about 4,500 trees, and this year they lost out on about 25% of their production.
“If you’re a backyard producer and you have 100 trees, you need to have your pails ready,” Martin said. “Rather than saying ... ‘it’s never going to run before March 15th’ — I think those days are over. And this year’s the ultimate example of how early the season can start.”
With drier summers and less snowfall contributing to groundwater, Solin, who also works for the University of Wisconsin’s division of extension, says the unpredictability is the biggest challenge for sustaining maple syrup operations like his. And the lengthening of the trees’ growing season, with an earlier start and later end to warmer weather, could affect the sap too. So Solin is concerned about water, about the increasingly dry summers in his area and what that could mean for continuing to make quality syrup.
“You can be doom and gloom, but you’ve also got to think about solutions,” Suzukovich III said. He pointed out that Indigenous people have been coming up with those kinds of solutions for thousands of years, giving maples a break when they needed it and diversifying the kinds of trees that they tap besides maple.
He thinks that producers with smaller operations, and particularly Indigenous producers, will be wellsuited to handle the changes that are coming. And the trees, too, especially older, more established trees, will find ways to adapt. “I think if the maples can do it, so can people,” he said.
That’s something Forest County Potawatomi members working on Bodwéwadmi Ktëgan are prioritizing: finding innovative ways to produce food independently in pursuit of food sovereignty. Shepard explained that his area is considered a “food desert” — the nearest Walmart is 45 minutes away — and having fresh food to provide for elders in the community is a project they hope to expand.
That includes maple syrup and sugar, which is a traditionally important product for some members. And
tapping the trees fosters Shepard’s family’s ties to the land, too: he also taps trees at home, and says his kids enjoy the activity, along with his dad, who told stories about going into the woods and hauling the sap out with horses. “It’s kind of like you get a reward” from taking care of the forest, Shepard said.
Many producers say their relationships with the forest change after tapping trees. Ella Solin, Jeremy’s eighteen-year-old daughter, described memories of making fairy rings in the woods and spending time with family amidst the trees every season. Steven Davis, who started tapping 220 trees on his family’s land in Door County, Wisconsin about six years ago, said he now feels “more like partners” with the land.
And Suzukovich III said that without fail, every year, his students end up naming their trees: “Once you drill the hole in your tree, that’s it. You cannot abandon that tree,” he tells them.
Those deeper relationships strengthen human bonds with the
forest, providing reasons for good management. “That is why we should care about it — forests provide ecosystem services that go beyond maple syrup,” said Inés Ibáñez, a forest ecologist at University of Michigan. She described the power of trees to regulate climate, prevent erosion, form soil and keep water stored in forms that are beneficial to all kinds of life.
On the spectrum of maple syrup producers, Solin places himself on the end most concerned about climate change and what it may mean for the future of his area. But as he walks beneath the trees, taking the metal cover off each pail, he feels gratitude for the recurring, in-depth experience with his sugar maple grove. It’s the best way, he says, to intimately, or even obsessively, watch the changes in the weather from year to year.
With his family warming up in the sugar shack that pumps sweetsmelling steam into the sky, he gets to take walks here beside the 250-year-old sugar maple his family calls Grandpa Tree. And for another season, he gets to watch as the forest springs back to life.
(c) 2024 , BLooMBErG
For Stuart Woolf, who grows wine grapes, almonds and other specialty crops in California, solar power is a necessary compromise as farming gets more challenging.
Woolf, who has 1,200 acres of panels on his farm in the state’s Central Valley, says individual growers like him are turning to solar to survive. He began leasing land to solar developers about a decade ago, an arrangement that provides him with a much-needed new profit stream.
“We would prefer not to have any solar, but if we don’t have it, we won’t have the ability to keep this farm going,” he said.
Farmers are increasingly embracing solar as a buffer against volatile crop
prices and rising expenses. Their incomes are heading for a 26% slide this year, the biggest drop since 2006, as cash receipts for corn, soy and sugar cane are expected to drop by double-digit percentages.
The shift is a big part of the renewables push in the US: The American Farmland Trust estimates that 83% of expected future solar development will take place on agricultural soil.
“Solar developers are looking for larger parcels of flatter land, and agricultural land often features those characteristics,” said Sean Gallagher, senior vice president of policy for Washington, DC-based trade group Solar Energy Industries Association. In return, farmers get more stable revenue over the long term - and it can be above what they earn from crops, he said.
The movement is certain to get a
kick from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which has helped accelerate the clean energy boom through tax incentives for solar developers. The country’s five largest agricultural states are among the biggest beneficiaries, poised to receive about $155 billion in clean power investments by 2030.
The IRA has already attracted a total of more than $110 billion in clean energy investments in the first year since it was signed in August 2022, with more than $10 billion funneled toward solar manufacturing.
Because renewable energy can be costly to set up, some farmers are leasing their land to developers, who typically cover installation expenses and own the generated electricity. Others have installed their own panels, selling the energy back to the grid to offset the costs of powering their farm.
More than 116,000 farms had solar panels in 2022, a 30% jump from five years prior, according to the US Department of Agriculture census released last month.
Some farmers worry that the trend will accelerate a shrinking of farm fields. The US has already lost about 20 million acres of agricultural land - an area nearly the size of Indianafrom 2017 to 2022, according to the USDA census. That has been driven in part by an aging farmer population and higher production costs that make it more difficult for younger generations to farm.
Solar panels are “covering up so much of the most fertile, productive farmland in the world,” said Ben Riensche, an Iowa corn and soybean farmer. “Someday, people will have electricity to run their Tesla, but no food.”
Others don’t see it as a food-versus-
fuel debate. “There’s plenty of acres and record supplies. I don’t think we need those corn acres,” Dan French, executive producer of Solar Farm Summit, said at a conference held outside of Chicago.
Solar so far makes up a small share of overall US farmland.
Having solar account for as much as 40% of US electricity would require about 5.7 million acres, the Department of Energy estimates. That is less than 1% of America’s some 880 million acres of farmland.
But farmers are concerned that even small losses will have a significant impact.
In Louisiana, cropland is more limited than in the Midwest or
Plains regions, said Jim Simon, the general manager of the American Sugar Cane League.
“We farm on ridges next to the bayou,” Simon said. “When that ground is taken up, there’s nowhere else you can go to find that acreage.”
Solar can be good or bad depending on how it plays out in a given area, according to Nathan L’Etoile, a managing director at the American Farmland Trust, a non-profit focused on preserving agricultural land. He estimates that landowners could get $1,200 per acre annually in a solar lease. Meanwhile, lackluster crop markets mean farmers are estimated to lose more than $100 per acre
planting corn in Illinois, according to the University of Illinois.
Woolf believes solar development should be taking place on the least-productive land, but as farms have to determine what’s best for their businesses it’s leading to a “checkerboard kind of pattern of solar development covering up really great farmland.”
Still, he has plans to triple the amount of solar on his landcovering about 15% of the total acreage - as panels offer a kind of insurance to the farming business.
“We just look at it as almost another crop that allows the rest of it to continue to grow and prosper,” he said.
On campuses across the nation, students and faculty have passionately debated whether their universities should stop accepting fossil fuel money for research. But until recently, funding from the meat and dairy industries, which also contribute to climate change, had scarcely received any attention.
That may be beginning to change. A study published in the journal Climatic Change late last month cast a critical eye on two agricultural research centers that focus on the livestock industry’s carbon emissions and, as recently as last year, got much of their funding from industry donations.
Housed at the University of California at Davis and Colorado State University, the centers study new technology to shrink the climate footprint of the livestock industry while regularly messaging that Americans don’t need to eat less meat and milk, contrary to what some environmentalists say.
But the report’s authors - Viveca Morris, the executive director of Yale Law School’s Law, Ethics & Animals Program, and Jennifer Jacquet, a University of Miami environmental policy professorwrote that, in practice, the centers are operating more like arms of the industry than independent research institutions.
“It’s not as if all they’re doing is looking at kelp and methane digesters,” said Jacquet, referring to a few of the new technologies broadly supported by the livestock industry. “They’re also doing a lot of spin,” she said.
In an interview, one academic highlighted in the study - Frank Mitloehner, a UC Davis professor - disputed his center is trying to spin the facts. “The notion that I am downplaying the importance of livestock on climate is absolutely not acceptable to me,” he said.
What the report found
In 2006, the United Nations published a report called “Livestock’s
Long Shadow” that examined the environmental impacts of farm animals. It was a public-relations nightmare for the beef and dairy industries. The report’s authors take this as their starting point, detailing how, in response, companies and livestock industry trade groups began to fund and champion the work of Mitloehner, who argued that the U.N.’s findings overstated the contribution of U.S. livestock to global warming.
Using University of California documents obtained in 2022 by the investigative arm of Greenpeace U.K., as well as publicly available records and the CVs of professors and graduate students who disclosed their funding sources, the report’s authors lay out how the industry’s financial relationship with Mitloehner and another researcher, Kimberly Stackhouse-Lawson, has evolved since.
In 2019, when Mitloehner launched his UC Davis academic group, the CLEAR Center, he did so with a $2.9 million donation from the nonprofit arm of the American Feed Industry Association and the help of a PR firm hired by the trade group to come up with the center’s name. Other funders have included the National Pork Board, the California Cattle Council, and Burger King. Since 2002, Mitloehner has received at least $5,498,000 in research funding from industry groups, the paper’s authors found, representing 46 percent of the total amount he reported. More public funding has followed - last year the center received nearly $4 million from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation.
The report’s authors write that, as the center’s director, Mitloehner became the meat and dairy industries’ go-to academic. Companies cited his research in public policy debates and when challenging the need for regulations. His relatively small Twitter following ballooned - his handle is @GHGGuru,” short for “greenhouse gas guru” - and he began to use social media and his blog to promote technological fixes to methane emissions from cattle and
other livestock, while questioning climate activists’ call to reduce herd sizes.
“The details of Mitloehner’s rise to prominence show that in the twentyfirst century, it was possible for the animal agriculture industry to help build a reputation of scientific credibility on topics related to climate change and attract national attention for individuals for whom little to none previously existed,” Morris and Jacquet wrote.
Although much of Mitloehner’s industry funding and pro-meat commentary has been well documented, what happened next has received less attention.
A year after the CLEAR Center launched, Colorado State University started an academic center called AgNext and hired Stackhouse-Lawson, one of Mitloehner’s former graduate students, to lead it. She was then the chief sustainability officer of JBS USA, the American subsidiary of the giant meat producer. The company is currently being sued by New York’s attorney general for allegedly making misleading claims about its greenhouse gas emission goals to boost sales, accusations that it denies.
According to the report, AgNext has received at least $750,000 from industry groups as of May 2023. Its funders include livestock trade groups, feed companies and JBS and, the report’s authors write, the majority of its advisory board members are leaders of companies that have given the center donations. In 2023, AgNext received a million dollar grant from the USDA.
In an interview, Stackhouse-Lawson said the funding amounts in the report are outdated. Donations to AgNext are “probably pretty equally split” between public and industry donations, she said.
“From a land grant university perspective, this sort of research is not new for us and this sort of funding is not new for us,” she said. “Land grant institutions have been working alongside industry partners since their inception. Those relationships allow us
to better understand their challenges.”
Yet Matthew Hayek, an assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University, who was not involved in the study, said its findings are novel.
“It connects a larger amount of funding than has been previously uncovered to a history of political activity, lobbying, and political relations associated with those gifts,” he said.
Why funding from beef and dairy companies matters
In interviews, Mitloehner and Stackhouse-Lawson said that their ties to industry are essential and valuable. Public funding for agriculture research is difficult to come by and private companies can provide access to proprietary technology and information that gives researchers insight into how to reduce carbon emissions they wouldn’t otherwise have, they said.
The paper “reads as if working with industry were a bad thing. And it’s not a bad thing,” Mitloehner said, adding that he plans to write a reply disputing its findings. He said that the paper’s authors got it backward: He’s not being influenced by big beef and dairy companies; he’s trying to change them.
“We are doing research that generates findings in and around emissions mitigation and we seek to influence the industry to adopt those technologies so that we can reduce emissions,” he said. Mitloehner compared his work to that of automobile engineers who work with big car manufacturers like Ford and Chevrolet to help them install reduce their emissions.
“I don’t work with cars, I work with cows and pigs and chicken,” he said. “And therefore I have to work with these farming organizations, as well as technology vendors, that’s how it goes.”
When researchers accept funding from private companies and trade groups, it provokes concern that they, and their findings, may be biased in favor of them. Activists have long-argued that it’s unethical for climate scientists to accept money from the very oil, gas
and coal companies whose products are contributing to global warming.
Morris and Jacquet said that the broader debate over corporate funding of research is worthwhile. But in the case of the CLEAR Center and AgNext, they are less concerned with the scientific research coming out of these institutions and more worried about the ways in which the livestock industry is turning to these two academics to lend institutional legitimacy to their own arguments, they said.
According to their paper, Mitloehner has given more than 800 presentations since he joined UC Davis in 2002 and frequently talks to the media and travels internationally. Stackhouse-Lawson has given at least 90 presentations, and both have emphasized in their appearances that the
meat and dairy industries in the U.S. are on track to significantly cut their emissions through voluntary action.
“The problem is how the research is being spun to impact climate policy and our understanding of both the scale and the urgency of addressing livestock emissions more broadly,” Morris said. “I think universities should refuse to conduct PR on behalf of meat and dairy groups.”
Why scientists care about emissions from livestock
As Mitloehner often points out, farming and ranching don’t generate as much carbon pollution as the burning of coal, oil and gas. But neither are they insignificant. Raising livestock is responsible for nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the U.N. estimates.
Cattle are particularly
problematic because their digestive process produces methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide. Their burps, or what researchers call “enteric emissions,” are the number one source of methane emissions from livestock.
Some meat companies are experimenting with changing the ingredients in cattle feed in hopes of lowering how much methane the produce. In California, state policy has created incentives for massive dairy farms to work on trapping methane from cow manure so that it can be turned into biofuel.
Although some climate advocates have embraced these approaches, others worry that they allow the industry to talk about the promise of projects that may never pay off, while continuing to emit large quantities of greenhouse gases.
Get ready to change up your cooking with the latest spring produce trends that will take your recipes from ordinary to extraordinary. You’ll transform your meals into gourmet experiences without breaking a sweat because fresh seasonal ingredients will give your creations a whole new level of deliciousness.
Incorporating seasonal produce
When you cook with fruits and vegetables that are in season, your meals will be tastier because the ingredients are at their peak ripeness. You can also try new dishes based on what’s fresh which
will expand your cooking skills while enjoying diverse flavors.
Welcoming these foods into your cooking not only enhances your kitchen creations but also supports sustainable agriculture practices and reduces your carbon footprint. By incorporating locally sourced ingredients into your meals, you’re celebrating the essence of each season while championing community resilience. So, whether it’s incorporating spinach and strawberries into a refreshing berry salad or crafting a delicate pea shoot pesto, these farm-fresh favorites allow you to rediscover the joy of cooking with nature’s finest offerings.
“To me, spring produce is all
about fresh and vibrant greens - so they’re wonderful to incorporate in home cooking! I love finding fresh, spring vegetables like asparagus, peas, and leafy greens such as spinach and arugula and adding them to pasta dishes for a touch of freshness, creating a nice crunchy texture for salads or making smoothies,” Shruthi BaskaranMakanju of Urban Farmie explains.
Spring produce variety
As spring blooms, there’s no better time to indulge in farm-fresh favorites that showcase the best of local and seasonal produce. From vibrant asparagus to crisp radishes and leafy greens, the bounty of spring offers a variety of flavors and textures waiting to be explored.
Local farmers’ markets are buzzing with colorful offerings, providing an opportunity to connect with growers and savor the fruits of their labor directly from the source. Spring brings a burst of seasonal fruits like strawberries, cherries and apricots. These fruits are at their peak in terms of flavor and freshness during this time. On the vegetable front, peas, kale and artichokes take the spotlight as some of the top seasonal vegetables available in spring.
Incorporating these options in your cooking guarantees your dishes are high-quality and colorful. Imagine biting into sweet mapleglazed carrots or enjoying tender asparagus; these experiences are
heightened by choosing top seasonal fruits and veggies that are readily available during spring.
Freshness equals flavor
When you opt for in-season produce, you’re not just getting a better taste but also more nutrients packed into each bite as they have been picked at the ideal time and haven’t been subjected to long storage. The vibrant colors from fresh produce like fresh strawberries or bright green peas can also add visual appeal to your dishes.
Springtime is the perfect time to include fresh seasonal ingredients in your cooking. Delicate herbs such as chives and mint lend a fresh and aromatic touch to any dish. Asparagus, known for its tender spears, adds a pleasant crunch and earthy flavor to stir-fries or salads. And who could resist the sweet yet tart taste of juicy lemons? Their zesty juice can brighten up dressings or be used as a
refreshing addition to drinks.
Cost savings
The January 2024 forecast from the United States Department of Agriculture predicts prices for fresh fruits are predicted to increase by 1% in 2024 while prices for fresh vegetables are predicted to decrease by 0.9%.
Planning meals based on seasonal ingredients can help save money on grocery bills. Since the supply of produce in season is plentiful, the prices tend to be lower. Cooking dishes centered around what is in season allows for cost-effective cooking while enjoying high-quality produce without breaking the budget.
Reducing carbon footprint
When you cook with spring produce, like fruits and veggies that are in season during the springtime, you’re helping out the environment without even realizing it. When you buy foods that are grown close to where you live, it means they don’t have to travel super far
to get to your kitchen. That’s important because all those trucks and planes that bring food from far away places can create a lot of pollution.
By choosing local and seasonal items, you’re actually helping to reduce the amount of pollution that gets put into the air. Plus, when you eat fruits and veggies that are in season, they tend to be fresher and have more nutrients in them.
So not only are you helping the planet, but you’re also getting the tastiest and healthiest options for your meals. So, instead of munching on apples that had to be flown in from a different country, try some smashed potatoes made with locally grown new potatoes in the spring.
Lisa MarcAurele is a blogger and cookbook author based in Connecticut. She created Little Bit Recipes to help people save money by minimizing leftovers when cooking for one or two people. Lisa enjoys hiking and taking scenic day trips around New England.
