Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • How Danone, Kashi and Land O'Lakes are backing sustainable farming

    Because the upfront costs of transitioning a farm to be certified organic can be burdensome to farmers amidst a growing demand for organic food, large companies like Kashi and Land O'Lakes are creating a number of initiatives to help ease the process. Techniques include no-interest advances for expensive initial supplies, fair trade premiums that go to local community work, and soil health initiatives for suppliers. The companies even implement a complex data tracking system to gather information on yield and profitability, which can then be used to inform future sustainable practice transitions.

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  • Putting the sun in Sunshine State? Florida's about-face on solar power

    “We’re in the midst of one of the largest solar expansions in the country,” says Alys Daly, a spokesperson for Florida Power and Light, the largest utility provider in the state of Florida. This statement represents a shift in which Florida has seized on decreasing costs of solar power and is working to increase its capacity tenfold. Power companies are helping residents save costs in an environmentally conscious way.

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  • How To Get Meat Eaters To Eat More Plant-Based Foods? Make Their Mouths Water

    Red meat consumption requires a great deal of water and land resources to produce and is even responsible for a large amount of greenhouse gases. To combat this, the Better Buying Lab is experimenting with marketing strategies to get people to buy more vegetarian and vegan items. After rebranding food with sensory descriptors like "Cuban" or "grilled", sales increased 13% in California and 76% in the UK. Influential brands like Panera are now increasing their efforts to continue this trend.

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  • New Mexicans Use Rain Gauges to Help Scientists Map Precipitation Levels

    When it comes to meteorology, citizen science can be a powerful resource. In New Mexico and neighboring states, volunteers are collecting data that helps researchers and state agencies map rainfall patterns. Through CoCoRaHS, an online network, that information is reaching diverse stakeholders, from farmers to insurers.

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  • How a team of researchers and high school students in California are working together to reduce pesticide exposure in children

    An on-going research study out of UC Berkeley's Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health has partnered with youth from the Salinas Valley for two decades to investigate the influence of pesticides on child development. Their findings have been published more than 150 times; the PSA that they designed is regularly aired on 10 radio stations across California, Oregon and Washington; and the children in the study grew up to form the first Youth Council to lead their own research on the impact of pesticides. As a result, many farmworkers in CA are now more educated about pesticide risks.

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  • Butterfly business: Insect farmers help conserve East African forests

    In Kenya and Tanzania, butterfly farming is emerging as a viable alternative to those seeking employment beyond illegal logging or hunting practices. While up to 1,200 farmers have participated in various butterfly projects across the countries, using their profits to educate their families and begin small businesses, the initiative has seen some roadblock from government mandates preventing wildlife exports.

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  • Resurrecting the Greenback, Take Two

    Fish conservation, in the rural streams of the Western United States, requires a remarkable amount of ongoing human intervention. Take the greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado's state fish. The greenback is bred in labs as part of a delicate effort to restore it to its native habitat. But in the wake of a 30 year conservation misstep, due to mistaken identity, scientists are undecided on the best path forward.

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  • Punjab's marginalised communities struggle for their right to cultivate common lands

    Balad Kalan’s Scheduled Castes, popularly called Dalits, collectively bid to win the rights to fertile common lands that big landlords had taken control of. Each family contributed what they could and, after protests due to the lack of transparency in the bidding process, won 53 hectares, or one-third of the common land, which was distributed among 145 families. Fifty other villages have since won collective land rights by replicating the joint bidding process. An 11-member cooperative manages the land in each village, which is distributed to families in proportion to their monetary contribution.

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  • St. Petersburg roaster Black Crow is first zero-waste coffee shop in Florida

    Black Crow Coffee Co. is the first certified zero-waste business in the state of Florida, meaning that 90% of their waste does not go into the landfill. They achieved this after 6 months of dedication to the mission, including composting 15,000 lbs and recycling 1,820 lbs of organic waste, reusing rags, and phasing out single-use plastic cleaning products.

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  • These probiotics for plants help farms suck up extra carbon dioxide

    A startup called Locus Agricultural Solutions has created a "probiotic" for soil that uses a mixture of beneficial fungi and bacteria. Not only does it increase productivity of crops, but it also absorbs enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere per acre to offset the emissions of a passenger vehicle. Tests done on an orange grove in Florida showed that areas treated with the product took up an extra 4.38 metric tons of CO2 per acre.

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