Standing amid rows of juicy, lime green lettuce and chunky florets of broccoli, Jose Paiz appears as if he could be the owner of a modern, high-tech farm. But the crops thriving here, in the suburbs of Mexico City, are part of a 1,000-year-old tradition.

“My ancestors were doing this before even the [Spanish] Conquistadors arrived in Mexico [in 1519],” says Paiz, while crouching down to pick up a handful of powdery soil from the chinampa, or “floating garden,” on which we are both standing.

These highly productive man-made island-farms, which can be found floating on lakes across the south of Mexico’s capital, date back to the time of the Aztecs or perhaps even earlier — and now proponents say that these ancient engineering wonders could provide an important, sustainable food source as the city faces historic drought.

“My grandparents taught me the methods,” adds Paiz, 32, who is the fifth generation of his family to be a chinampero working in San Gregorio Atlapulco, a traditional working-class neighborhood about 10 miles south of the center of Mexico City.

As a chinampero, Jose Paiz is carrying on a tradition that goes back centuries. Credit: Peter Yeung

Experts say that these chinampas, which have been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, are considered one of the most productive agricultural systems in the world. The artificial islands are built by gathering large amounts of soil from the bottom of the lake and placing it on top of reeds, grasses and rushes in a mass that rises above the water. Farmers then plant a fence of ahuejotes, Mexican willow trees, around the plot to naturally protect against erosion. This system means that the chinampa’s soil is constantly enriched by nutrient-filled sediment flowing in from the surrounding ditches and canals, yielding multiple harvests every year.

“In terms of agriculture, they are one of the best examples of how humans can work with nature,” says Lucio Usobiaga, founder of Arca Tierra, an organization providing local farmers in the area with technical and entrepreneurial support.

One of the first traces of the chinampas dates back to the 14th century, when the Aztecs arrived at the region of what is now modern-day Mexico City. There, they founded the settlement of Tenochtitlán — which would become one of the most powerful cities in all Mesoamerica — in the Valley of Mexico.

But as the Aztecs soon discovered, the valley’s boggy, lake-filled landscape was difficult to cultivate or build on. So they devised an ingenious plan to adapt to the surroundings: the chinampas.

Ahuejotes, Mexican willow trees, are planted around the plots to protect against erosion. Credit: Peter Yeung

A 2013 paper by North Carolina State University professor Matthew Teti found that in the 16th century, chinampa farms could produce 13 times as much crop as dry-land farming in the same area — a system that provided food for hundreds of thousands of people. Chinampas, the study said, are “one of the most intensive and productive agricultural systems ever devised.”

“Aztec planners created these vital waterways as integral to the existence of its cultural, physical, and spiritual, urban identity, rather than draining the water and excluding it from the urban experience,” it continued.

In the case of Jose Paiz, the age-old system is still reaping rewards today. He says that his 7,000 square meters of chinampa, for example, can produce as much as 100 kilograms of broccoli per day — which is sold alongside the yields of fresh herbs, spinach, chard, radishes, corn and kale at local markets in the south of Mexico City.

“I’m proud to be continuing the tradition of my ancestors,” he says.

Meanwhile, according to Arca Tierra, their network of seven producers in the region cultivates over 40,000 square meters of land, employing a total of 27 workers in the field and producing 3,650 kilograms per month. At some farms, as many as 95 varieties of vegetables and herbs are cultivated, underlining the fertility of the method. The production brings in over $4,000 per month in crop sales.

Produce grown on the chinampas is sold at bustling markets in the south of Mexico City. Credit: Peter Yeung

“At the beginning, it was mainly a commercial endeavor to source organic produce close to the city,” says Usobiaga, who supplies restaurants in Mexico City and began working with chinamperos in 2009. “But I learned they are very important in many regards and have historical and cultural importance.”

The design of the chinampas is particularly efficient in its use of water, which it can absorb and retain from the surrounding canals for long periods as well as allowing crops to draw from the groundwater directly, reducing the need for active irrigation.

This could prove hugely valuable for Mexico City and its 22 million residents, since water supplies have fallen to historic lows due to abnormally low rainfall partly attributable to climate change. And lessons learned from the chinampas could potentially help cities around the planet: the UN World Water Development 2024 Report found the number of people lacking access to drinking water in cities will likely reach two billion by 2050.

“The technical aspects of agriculture are innate to every place,” says Usobiaga. “But the way of thinking that created the chinampas, that sensibility, has to be appreciated and valued: To work with the flow of nature, the flow of the seasons. That is what we have to use to get us out of the problem we are in.”

The unique wetlands ecosystem is also home to two percent of the world’s and 11 percent of Mexico’s biodiversity, including the critically endangered axolotl, or Ambystoma mexicanum, an incredible salamander-like amphibian that is able to regenerate every part of its body — even parts of its vital organs such the heart and brain.

Meanwhile, the chinampas also provide a host of other benefits: they filter water, cool the city, sequester carbon, offer green space for locals, and are now a popular destination for tourists who take boats along the picturesque waterways.

Arca Tierra is currently helping to restore the chinampas and training young students in the required skills to cultivate them. Credit: Antoli Studio / Arca Tierra

The value of the chinampas was underlined during the Covid-19 pandemic, when, as the city’s major markets ground to a halt, the chinampas were able to provide healthy, locally-grown food. In some cases, sales more than doubled.

“People began to search for healthier food,” says David Monachon, a social sciences researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who has researched the chinampas as a sustainable food source. “There was this focus on local economy and community. Many people didn’t make this connection before.”

Yet despite their immense value, the chinampas are under threat: rising urbanization means the chinampa landscape is being built on; pollution is dirtying the waters that feed them; younger generations are losing interest in agriculture; and agro-industry is under-cutting the small-scale producers in a price war.

“There are a lot of challenges and problems,” says Monachon, who is supporting a local cooperative of chinamperos to sell their goods via the Mercado Universitario Alternativo, or Alternative University Market. “But chinampas could feed the city.”

Now, only 20 percent of the 2,200 hectares of chinampas are in use, and only about 2.5 percent are being actively cultivated for farming food — the rest is being used for growing flowers and tourism. But Arca Tierra is helping to restore the chinampas — five hectares to date — and is training 15 young students in the required skills to cultivate them — the second, six-month cohort — while also carrying out research on the most effective techniques and productive crops to use on them.

“We have demonstrated that it can be done on a small scale,” says Usobiaga, who believes chinampas have the potential to produce enough of crops like lettuces, herbs and broccoli for all of Mexico City. “But the chinampas need support and investment from the government to scale up production.”

Rosa Garcia sells the produce that she grows on her family’s one-hectare chinampa at Xochimilco market. Credit: Peter Yeung

At Xochimilco market, the largest in the area, there is clear evidence of appetite for a resilient, local food system and signs that this ancient Aztec tradition can still bear fruit. The market bustles with traders and customers, spilling from the covered area out onto the streets.

Rosa Garcia, 47, is rushing around delivering lettuce, spinach, cilantro and broccoli to her 14 clients of the day. The produce, grown at her one-hectare chinampa at San Gregorio Atlapulco, is in high demand. Garcia says that each day her family-run farm can earn as much as 1,000 to 1,500 Mexican pesos ($60 to $90).

“I’ve been doing this since I was a girl,” says Garcia, ticking off the orders as they are dispatched. “It’s a system that works. Why do anything different?”

This article was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful. Reasons to the Cheerful is a nonprofit online magazine covering stories of hope, rooted in evidence. You can read more from Reasons to be Cheerful here. 

For many small-scale fruit and vegetable growers, “local” is the word that makes their business work. Shoppers seek out—and pay premiums for—the promise that a juicy tomato or vibrant squash was raised right down the road. 

Yet much of the time, the local food economy ultimately depends on big farms thousands of miles across the country or even overseas: the seed producers who provide planting stock for the growing season. The resulting seeds, developed under very different environmental conditions, aren’t always a great agricultural fit for the farms that grow them. And mistakes by large seed farms can reverberate widely, as with last year’s “Jalapeñogate,” where stores across the United States sold peppers that had been mislabeled by an international grower.

Phil Howard, a professor of community sustainability at Michigan State University, has estimated that more than 60 percent of the global seed market is now controlled by four multinational companies after decades of consolidation through corporate acquisitions. Even regional seed distributors often get supplies from those centralized sources.

Aware of that disconnect, some growers are trying to keep things local all through the supply chain—including seed farming. Their efforts could make their local food systems more resilient, with seeds better adapted to regional climates and soils. 

Siembra Farm staff shelling Southern peas grown on the farm during a staff meeting. Photography submitted by Melissa DeSa.

Chris Smith’s Appalachian collective

Since 2018, Chris Smith has been working to promote agricultural biodiversity through his nonprofit Utopian Seed Project, based in Asheville, North Carolina. He’s explored and promoted obscure cultivars of southern staples such as Turkish Yalova Akkoy okra and colorful Ole Timey Blue collard greens, as well as experimented with creating new genetic potential through “ultracrosses” of many existing varieties.

“We’ve been talking about these seeds as ‘the seeds that know the South,’” says Smith. “They understand the heat, the humidity, the diseases and can respond better to that because they’ve been grown locally.”

To get those types of seeds into more hands, however, Smith knew he’d need a broader coalition. In 2022, he partnered with fellow farmers Leeza Chen and Shelby Johnson to reach out to regional growers and discuss what a local seed initiative might look like. They knew they wanted an approach radically different from the centralized model that dominates the market.

“It all has to be built on relationships; we have to know the people and trust the people that we’re working with,” says Smith. The group held monthly meetings with local farmers, many in-person around boxes of pizza, to establish shared values and goals.

What emerged was the Appalachian Seed Growers Collective. About a dozen members agreed to grow 11 regionally adapted crops in 2023, with the collective using a $25,000 grant from the Ceres Trust to invest in a mobile trailer that can visit each farm and process seeds using a “Winnow Wizard” and a threshing machine. 

Varieties on offer during the collective’s first season this year included Coral Sorghum, a cultivar Johnson is developing for both grain and syrup production; Blue Ridge Butternut, a squash resulting from 15 years of breeding by Western North Carolina farmer Matt Wallace; and Living Web Ventura Celery, which has naturalized and diversified over a decade of self-seeding.

Smith admits that the economics of seed work can be challenging, with global suppliers able to leverage scale and lower labor costs. But on the consumer side, the collective is working to boost demand by educating area distributors and gardeners about the added value of local seeds. Asheville’s Sow True Seed, where Smith worked prior to starting the Utopian Seed Project, is paying a premium for the seeds as part of its mission to support local growers.

On the production side, the collective guarantees farmers payment based on the amount of land they dedicate to seeds regardless of yield, which reduces the financial risk of a bad harvest. Smith says that approach can encourage more sustainable growing and shift attitudes away from regarding seeds as pure commodities. “We’re distributing the seeds, but what we’re really valuing is the people’s land and labor in producing them,” he explains.

Winnowing beans at Chris Smith’s community seed day. Photography submitted by Chris Smith.

Melissa DeSa’s seeds at work

Although Melissa DeSa grew up amid the snows of Western Canada, she took the first chance she got to move somewhere with a bit more sunshine— Sarasota, Florida—to work as a wildlife ecologist. 

A friend there got her involved in the local chapter of Slow Food, where she became passionate about the connections between agriculture and the environment, and after graduating from an ecology masters program at the University of Florida, DeSa cofounded the nonprofit Working Food in Gainesville in 2012. She soon became convinced that the long-term success and sustainability of Florida’s agriculture depended on locally adapted seeds. 

“Florida seems like a great place to grow stuff, and we do have a nice year-round growing season,” says DeSa. “But we also have poor, sandy soil and a lot of pest and disease issues that never get knocked back by freezes. We can’t just open up these big, beautiful heirloom seed catalogs, pick things, throw them in the soil and have them do well.”

DeSa established Working Food as a regional seed hub around north-central Florida, supplying local gardeners and market farmers with thousands of packets of suitable varieties. The bulk of those seeds are grown in Gainesville in partnership with GROW HUB, a nonprofit nursery that serves adults with disabilities. Others are raised by the University of Florida’s Field & Fork teaching farm or gardeners with a row to spare.

One local cultivar DeSa has championed is the Seminole pumpkin, long grown by the state’s Native communities. They’re robust against squash vine borers, taste pleasantly sweet and keep extremely well—a key quality in the humid Florida climate. “Having a pumpkin that can sit on your kitchen counter at 75 degrees for six, eight, 10 months? That’s pretty awesome,” she says.

Last year, Working Food scored a $41,000 grant from the US Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program to help encourage seed farming among local market gardeners. By building a network of local seed suppliers, DeSa says Florida can become more prepared for an uncertain future.

“I truly believe that if, say, during the pandemic, more growers already had these decentralized seed systems and food distribution systems in place, it wouldn’t have felt so crazy and scary,” she says. “We can’t depend on those big institutions or companies that are centralized to always be able to come through for us.”

Edmund Frost’s research and resilience

Edmund Frost’s job involves eating a lot of cucumber. As a member-owner of Common Wealth Seed Growers, he’s led the Louisa, Virginia-based project’s efforts to breed and produce regionally adapted vegetable seeds since 2014, and the cucurbits are a major focus.

“You’re looking for sweetness, crispness and a kind of cucumbery aromatic flavor, while avoiding bitterness and excessive astringency,” says Frost of his taste-test checklist. “Some plants will produce a lot, they’ll look good, but the cucumbers aren’t really inspiring.”

Just as importantly, his two leading varieties—South Wind Slicer and Common Wealth Pickler—can stand up to the heat and downy mildew pressure of late summer in Virginia, when most other cucumber cultivars have already petered out. Many breeders for the big seed catalogs are based in the Northeast, says Frost, and while their varieties often grow quickly and productively, they haven’t taken the conditions of the South into account.

Beyond breeding cucumbers, butternut squash, pumpkins and melons, Common Wealth has helped introduce varieties previously unknown to the South, such as a Guatemalan green ayote squash, that do particularly well in the area. Frost says the goal is to get market farmers and gardeners thinking more deeply about how to match the seeds they select with their regional realities.

“The idea with starting Common Wealth was to express values of regional adaptation and research through seeds, get those out to the customers and then the customers would value and pay for it to help fund our research,” he says. 

The ideal of resilience has taken on particular resonance for Frost: In March, a wildfire tore through the Twin Oaks intentional community where he lives, consuming a warehouse that housed Common Wealth seeds. Thankfully, many seeds were in another location due to planned renovations on the building; he expects his work to recover, and he plans to back up his stocks in multiple locations for the future.

Frost says the fire highlights why a more distributed, locally adapted seed economy will be so important in a time of climate uncertainty. “There’s so much opportunity—and need—for people to do seed work in our region,” he says. “I’d love to see a dozen farm-based seed companies in the Southeast.”

Joe Durando of Possum Hollow Farm shows other farmers the Cuban Calabaza (Cucurbita moschata) he’s been saving for many years at Possum Hollow Farm in Alachua, Florida. Photography submitted by Melissa DeSa.

Want to learn more about local seeds?

The first thing to do is shop local! Buy local seeds, ask your local nursery or garden center to stock local seeds or find growers near you who are prioritizing local varieties. 

Learn how to save local seeds yourself with our handy guide to seed saving, and connect with other seed savers on the Seed Savers Exchange, where you can find other heirloom varieties and learn more about particular plants in your area.

To find out who is working with local seeds near you, try out the Local Seed Search map. In Canada, you can use this map from the Young Agrarians to find your local seed source. 

Last summer, members of the InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC), a Native non-profit group dedicated to restoring tribal bison herds among its 83 member Nations, embarked on a timeless practice across the grasslands of southeast Montana: the slaughter of a 1,600-pound American bison, right out in the open prairie. 

In tow was the organization’s new “Cultural Harvest Trailer,” a four-wheel vehicle custom-designed to process the sacred bovid in line with tribal customs—and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) meat-processing standards. Built through a cooperative agreement with the federal agency, the $75,000 prototype is a game-changing innovation, says Troy Heinert, ITBC executive director and a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.

“We can slaughter, skin and quarter an animal in the open, with grass still in his mouth and have him in a cool trailer in 90 minutes,” or half of the processing time allowed by the USDA, says Heinert. The narrow window, which is tailored to the centralized harvesting of cattle and other transport-friendly livestock, can be challenging on tribal land, he says. Often, “it can take a couple hours just to get to the highway, let alone a processing plant.”

The harvest trailer is one example in a recent set of sweeping USDA initiatives that recognize and promote buffalo—an animal central to the identity of numerous North American peoples—as foundational to tribal food systems.

Spurred by years of advocacy by the ITBC, the agency’s grant programs and regulatory overhauls reinforce the interwoven nature of bison husbandry, processing and distribution. The shift in perspective helps restore “tribal buffalo lifeways,” he says, by putting bison back onto local plates and into the local economy.

The ITBC’s Cultural Harvest Trailer rolls across the Crow Reservation in southern Montana. (Photo courtesy of the InterTribal Buffalo Council)

For Native communities, especially those in rural and economically disadvantaged regions, reclaiming their food source is a major leap towards self-determination, says Heinert. “So, this is just a huge win for tribal people.”

Prairie roots revival

Approximately 30 million American bison once roamed the country’s vast grasslands. But in the mid-1800s, federal policies tied to westward expansion fueled their systematic slaughter, devastating the livelihood of Native tribes. By 1884, the buffalo population had plunged to just 325 animals, but subsequent conservation efforts have revived those numbers to about 400,000. Heinert estimates that tribal herds total nearly 30,000; the remainder reside in state and national parks, including Yellowstone, and on commercial ranches.

As a keystone species, buffalo play a vital role in restoring grasslands by enhancing native grass growth. The fertile and highly threatened ecosystem is essential to biodiversity, water filtration, soil stabilization and carbon storage, and fostering them aligns with federal climate and environmental goals. (A recent study finds that, in the face of greater droughts and wildfires, the deep-rooted system can sequester more carbon than forests.)

The USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program includes nearly $92 million in bison-related grants. The ITBC is administering $5 million to assist tribes in implementing climate-resilient, regenerative ranching practices, mainly through extensive fencing and water infrastructure development.

Like many other native animals and plants that have evolved with the land, bison are hardy and climate-resilient, requiring few interventions or inputs to flourish, says Heather Dawn Thompson, the USDA Office of Tribal Relations director and a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. As a food source, the bison’s high nutritional content can also help boost health outcomes in communities grappling with diet-related health challenges, making it a key consideration in promoting national food security.

Yet, the USDA’s commodity-centered approach, which favors industrial producers and national distribution models, hasn’t fostered the small-scale production of Indigenous crops and livestock, says Thompson. Bison are a prime example; the undomesticated and free-roaming animals don’t fit the Big Ag paradigm of concentrated feedlots, commodity grain feeding and centralized processing facilities—common livestock practices needed to achieve the scale required to fulfill the 40,000-pound minimums required for USDA meat procurement contracts.

Consequently, “tribal producers couldn’t even apply to programs that served their own reservations,” says Thompson, such as the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) and other initiatives that comprise the agency’s $3-billion annual spend.

The 2021 American Rescue Plan revamped the rules to accommodate “a more complex and diverse food system,” says Jennifer Lester Moffitt, the USDA’s under secretary of agriculture for marketing and regulatory programs.

In particular, the FDPIR, which includes elder and child nutrition programs, expanded food choices to cover traditional staples such as bison and wild salmon. It also drastically lowered procurement minimums and allowed state meat inspections in place of federal ones. (Bison, being a non-amenable, or wild species, don’t require a USDA seal; however, federal contracts and interstate sales do.)

Last year, the USDA tested these changes through the Bison Purchase Pilot program, awarding half-year FDPIR procurement contracts to four tribal producers, including $67,000 to the Cheyenne River Buffalo Authority Corporation (CRBAC), a ranching operation owned by the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

ITBC and Crow Tribe members slaughter bison using the ITBC’s Cultural Harvest Trailer on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana. (Photo courtesy of the InterTribal Buffalo Council)

The solid commitment helps “even the field for Native producers,” says CRBAC manager and tribal member Jayme Murray, whose corporation has kept nearby reservations supplied with 800 pounds of bison meat every month since last November. While the near-10-percent uptick in sales is a boon for business, the profits go far beyond the bottom line, he adds. “A local food system [allows] us to feed our own tribal communities and put a culturally significant [food] back into our diet.”

The recognition of state inspections also permits procurement opportunities with other federal agencies, as well as access to a national, online market. These changes “bring much-needed revenue and jobs to the tribe and community,” says Murray, giving an economic boost to a region officially identified as being in “persistent poverty.”

Shoring up the safety net

Sitkalidak Island faces Old Harbor, a remote village of 235 residents—mostly from the Alutiiq Tribe of Old Harbor, a Native Alaskan people—in Alaska’s Kodiak Archipelago. Rugged and verdant, the uninhabited isle has long been a rich hunting ground for brown bears, Sitka deer and ducks, while the surrounding seas have provided the Alutiiq with abundant salmon, halibut, butter clams and seals. Yet, depleting fish stocks, increasing algal blooms and crashes in the deer population have made those traditional food sources less reliable in recent years, says Jeffrey Peterson, Alutiiq chief and city mayor.

In 2017, the Tribal Council acquired 30 buffalo with support of the ITBC as a means of enriching the local diet. For an isolated community with no grocery store—the closest is a 40-minute flight away in Kodiak City—the herd, which has grown to about 70 heads, has become crucial to tribal food security. “They can survive the bears and the winters,” says Peterson. “And as Native people, we feel a connection to bison or any indigenous animal that may have roamed our [North America] lands.”

Currently, the Alutiiq harvest about two heads a month for local consumption. But without a processing and refrigeration facility, handling and storing the carcass of the continent’s largest land mammal—a mature bull can stand 6.5 feet tall and weigh upwards of 2,000 pounds—is a challenge, says Peterson.

The long-awaited approval of the Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing Grant, a USDA program designed to bolster the processing, storage and distribution infrastructure of culturally relevant meat in Native communities, will be transformative, says Peterson. The $1-million grant secures the purchase and modernization of an existing warehouse—and with electricity costing more than four times the national average, will help keep it running.

The ability to process and stock ample buffalo and other locally sourced meats and fish helps shore up the safety net of the entire tribe, he says, including expats in Kodiak City, Anchorage and beyond. It also opens up opportunities for new jobs, food exports and increased tourism by catering to more recreational hunters and fishermen. 

“You can’t stop… changes in the climate, the acidification in the ocean,” says Peterson. “Without a backup plan, we’re going to be hurting.”

Together, the comprehensive nature of these initiatives recognizes the centrality of bison in restoring both the land and Native food sovereignty, says ITBC’s Heinert. “The buffalo was nearly decimated in order to control the Native people of this country. Now, [we’re able to] bring this animal back to its rightful place, in its rightful numbers… all the while helping to heal our lands,” he adds. “It’s starting to come full circle.”

***

How to support tribal buffalo efforts

Although tribal ranchers and advocates see the economic potential of bison, they’re quick to dismiss the notion of turning it into a cattle-like commodity. Bison ranching runs counter to high-volume, mass production, says Dave Carter, regional director of the Flower Hill Institute (FHI). The Indigenous-led nonprofit partners with the USDA to assist tribes with grant applications and project implementation, including bison processing, marketing and distribution.

As wild animals, buffalo are raised as nature intended—on vast open land, in natural herds that include bulls. They’re spared standard livestock practices such as castration, artificial insemination and confinement in feedlots, says Carter, who previously headed the National Bison Association, a trade group representing the interests of commercial bison producers and processors.

While these factors can limit the size of operations, “we have a lot of room to grow to herds without [it] becoming a commodity,” he says. Although Americans eat, on average, 59 pounds of beef annually, per-capita buffalo consumption equates to mere nibbles of a single burger.

“The best way to preserve bison,” Carter adds, “is to eat bison.”

For a tribal source, check out the Cheyenne River Buffalo Company.

Nearly four decades ago, Ron Mardesen and his wife Denise stopped using antibiotics on their hog farm, A-Frame Acres, in Elliot, Iowa. He decided there was a better way to raise his animals, one that wouldn’t require the need for routine antibiotics. After prioritizing clean feed, fresh air, comfortable bedding and plenty of space, he says his pigs began to thrive. In 2002, Mardesen started selling his pork to Niman Ranch, a network of independent family farmers that raise livestock without antibiotics or added hormones.

As the owner of a multi-generational farm, Mardesen has seen industrial agriculture and factory farming take increasing control over meat production in the last few decades. With that has come the extreme overuse of antibiotics in livestock farming.

“You know, we want to produce more pounds of pork, more pounds of beef, more pounds of chicken on smaller and smaller resources. The best way they have come up with to continue with this efficiency push is to pound antibiotics,” says Mardesen. “I have never been comfortable taking an animal as intelligent as a pig and cramming them into a concrete box for the sake of efficiency.”

A recent report released by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that antibiotic sales for meat production increased by 4 percent from 2021 to 2022, with pigs and cattle accounting for the majority of sales. Antibiotic sales for animal use peaked in 2015, after which the FDA banned the use of antibiotics for animal growth, leading to a major decline in antibiotic sales the following year. But from 2017 onwards, antibiotic sales for livestock farming have steadily risen each year, increasing 12 percent from 2017 to 2022.

“I have never been comfortable taking an animal as intelligent as a pig and cramming them into a concrete box for the sake of efficiency.” 

About 70 percent of medically important antibiotics in the US are sold for animals, not humans. The more an antibiotic is used, the more both animals and humans develop resistance to them, which significantly lowers the effectiveness of the intervention, says Steve Roach, food program director at Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), an organization that advocates for humane farming. 

While antibiotics were originally used to treat sick animals, in the 1940s, farmers discovered regular antibiotic use could make animals grow faster in less time and with fewer resources. 

Although the US banned the use of antibiotics for growth, they are still used for disease prevention and disease control. If one animal gets sick, the entire group is often treated because they live in such close proximity to one another. 

Nearly a third of medically important antibiotics have no duration limit, meaning a farmer can use those antibiotics in feed for as long as they want to prevent disease. Roach says this allows farmers to keep animals in poor living conditions that are more likely to get them sick.

Ron Mardesen stopped the use of routine antibiotics nearly 40 years ago. (Photo courtesy of Ron Mardesen)

Antibiotic use is particularly common on factory farms, where certain practices lead to disease in animals. Cattle are often fed a corn or soy diet instead of grass, which can lead to illness. Baby pigs are weaned off their mother’s milk and fed solid foods before they’re ready, causing diarrhea. 

“Having animals close together in crowded conditions, it saves you money, but also disease can easily spread,” says Roach. “You give them a diet that causes problems, so you basically just feed them antibiotics continuously.”

Lynn Utesch, a cattle farmer in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin—a region often referred to as CAFO alley for its high concentration of factory farms—discovered early on that, with the right methods, he doesn’t need antibiotics to raise his cattle. He and his wife Nancy own a 150-acre grass-fed beef farm and use a rotational grazing method. Every two days, they move their cows to a new pasture and the animals have plenty of space from one another. In his 30 years farming, Utesch has never had to use antibiotics on his cattle, not even for treatment. 

“If you allow the animal to eat its natural diet, if you allow it to live the way that nature intended out in the open air and where it cannot be confined tightly to the other cows, then you don’t have any need for antibiotics because those animals are completely healthy,” says Utesch.

Lynn and Nancy Utesch. (Photo courtesy of Lynn Utesch)

When the Utesches started farming, their customers expressed a preference for antibiotic-free, grass-fed beef. It was hard to find that elsewhere at the time. These days, it’s what many consumers look for. A 2021 poll found that “antibiotic-free” labels are important to two-thirds of Americans when buying meat.

Despite this priority, labeling is far from straightforward. From “antibiotic-free” to “no antibiotics routinely used” to “antibiotics may be used,” there are plenty of ambiguities within labeling and there is little room for nuance, says Roach. Antibiotics were designed to treat sick animals, but the overuse and lack of transparency has led to “an all-or-nothing mindset” and negated their original intent, he says.

FACT supports antibiotic use for animal treatment, but only if it is approached with transparency and communication between the farmer and the certifier. The Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University is developing a “certified responsible antibiotic use” label, which would allow antibiotics for treatment but not for prevention.

“When you do use antibiotics for treatment, you need to report that to the certifier and let them know. And so we kind of prefer that label, but it’s harder to communicate that to the consumer,” says Roach. 

Unlike Utesch, Mardesen of A-Frame Acres does use antibiotics to treat a pig if it falls ill, but he uses a strict documentation process. He has to clearly identify the animal, what type of antibiotic was administered, the outcome of the treatment and where the animal was marketed. He cannot sell that pork to Niman Ranch, which has a strict “no-antibiotics ever” policy.

“If I do get an animal that does get sick, because I don’t routinely always throw antibiotics at these animals, when I have to treat an animal, the antibiotics that are available to use work a lot better on the farm,” says Mardesen.

Limiting antibiotic use will likely require stricter regulation from the FDA and more transparency in labeling. The USDA is considering implementing higher standards for meat to be labeled antibiotic free. But both Mardesen and Utesch say it starts with changing practices that benefit the animals so antibiotics aren’t needed for prevention or control. If there wasn’t such a focus on yield and production in the food system, fewer animals would be crammed into tight spaces and fed poor diets, says Utesch.

As a consumer, Utesch says the best thing you can do is educate yourself and learn where your food comes from. Look for organic and grass-fed meat, understand the different labels and, most of all, build a relationship with your local farmer. 

“Find a farmer, and not only just pick up the product the farmer has, but have a relationship where you say, ‘What does rotational grazing mean? Or outdoor access? What does that mean to you?’ Have a conversation about how an animal is actually raised and handled,” says Nancy Utesch. 

“A lot of the Michigan growers have told us we probably couldn’t have picked a worse year to take over,” says John Behrens, owner of Farmhaus Farms and Farmhaus Cider Co. Coming off an exceptionally warm winter, it’s clear to Behrens that it’s a particularly challenging time to become a farmer. “We had a day that was over 70F, and the next day, the high I don’t think got out of the 20s,” he says. “That is not normal.”

Across the country, farmers growing apples and other tree fruits are intensifying their efforts to mitigate the challenges posed by increasingly erratic weather patterns driven by climate change, from spring frosts to drought. Tactics include frost fans, misting and mulching. Plus, in some cases, growers are planting new trees that they believe will help them to prepare for a more resilient farming future. With these strategies, farmers hope to keep their precious fruits from being destroyed by the elements, protecting their livelihoods—and the quality of the fresh and local produce that consumers can enjoy.

Behrens, who is also president of the Michigan Cider Association, has recently embarked on a new challenge: taking over a tree fruit farm close to his cidery in the Grand Rapids area. The farm—which had previously been with one family since 1907—grows apples, peaches, pears, plums and cherries. There is also a market and bakery onsite. Being a cidery and a grower has some advantages: The fruit has a clear path to production even when packing houses are overrun, and using hail-damaged fruits is easier. 

But although residents of the snowy Mitten State might have enjoyed the warmer winter weather, farmers had other concerns. Behren’s orchard has been running about five weeks ahead of last year, in terms of the activity that the team has been seeing in the trees. For tree fruit farmers in the area, he says that late-season frost is the biggest single risk. “You increase your odds of that exponentially as you get into warmer winters and earlier springs.” 

A cold wave with a frost and freeze after bud break can mean no crop. Tree fruit in Michigan, including the apple crop, was severely impacted by late frosts in 2012. And in both 2020 and 2021, tart cherry production was slashed by more than half. This instability, combined with low prices for crops due to imports from Turkey, means a risk of losing a strong farming tradition in the nation’s top cherry state.

Long before fruits reach stores and customers, protecting a crop from a late cold snap can be a knife edge. “A three-degree difference for an hour or two can be the difference between a 10-percent crop loss and a 90-percent crop loss,” he says. Many orchards use frost fans to mitigate the issues of cold weather that comes too late in the year. But, in some cases, the weather gets so cold it doesn’t matter whether the farm has frost fans or not. Although some apple varieties can withstand cooler temperatures, when frost hits trees that are well into bloom, deploying mitigating measures can be a waste of energy for farmers. In these extreme cases, “it’s a whole bunch of money down the drain for nothing,” says Behrens.

Farmhaus Farms grows apples, peaches, pears, plums and cherries. (Photo credit: Alyssa McElheny)

Across the country, in the Pacific Northwest, spring frosts also pose risks for growers. At Finnriver Farm and Cidery on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, operations director Andrew Byers has been using misting as a strategy to keep pear trees cool in the spring. The team has set up overhead misters with a thermostat when it reaches 40F or so during the day in February. “By evaporative cooling, we can keep the pear trees wet, and that keeps them a little bit cooler,” says Byers. This can “trick” the trees to avoid early blooming. “We can slow the buds despite a warm spell early on.” Naturally, this is an easier method to use with plenty of access to water. “It would be a difficult proposition in the Central Valley of California,” says Byers. 

Finnriver focuses on antique apple varieties from the UK, France and Spain, and he is working on breaking up the orchard’s monoculture. “When we feel vulnerable to the climactic changes that we’re seeing—like increased heat, less dormant period in the winter and erratic springs and erratic summers—the answer to me seems to be diversification,” says Byers. He explains that some of the diseases that live in soils and plant root tissue impact apples more so than other tree fruits. 

The team is planting other kinds of trees, including fruits with which the cidery already ferments, such as plums and elderberries. “Pollinator resilience is also a pretty big issue in this idea of erratic climate,” says Byers. This is another benefit of diversity, as plums bloom earlier than apples, whereas elderberries bloom later.

Byers has also ramped up efforts with mulch and compost additions in the orchard since the 2021 heat dome. “We just watched the trees sizzle,” he says. Now, he’s putting wood chips at the base of the trees. “That is creating this fungal network, as the wood chips break down,” he explains. Like a giant sponge, this helps to improve water resilience in the root zone of the trees. It’s a tactic that avid home gardeners can also employ, to help with conserving moisture and moderating soil temperature.

The farm has previously operated with a dwarf orchard, but Byers says that he is now four years into an initiative to plant larger trees, as part of a goal to look at longer-term climate resilience strategies. In a dwarf orchard, trees can be planted more densely, and they produce on a faster timeline than larger trees, with the first harvest ready just four years after planting. But these small trees only have around 20 years of productivity. The new semi-standard trees will require more space and take between seven and 10 years until the first crop is ready. But the change may be worth it: The larger and taller trees will remain productive for up to 100 years, and crucially, these larger trees will provide additional shade and have better water retention.

After looking at climate modeling provided by the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, Byers decided that preparing for hotter, drier summers in the future should be a priority at the orchard. The new trees with deeper root systems will be an important part of that. With these measures, he is hoping to play his part in ensuring that fruit production continues in the face of climate threats. “We are standing on the shoulders of centuries of apple growing and trying to figure out the best fit pathway for the conditions that we have now.”

Up to 40 percent of all food produced around the world never makes it to anyone’s plate—a staggering fact. As Congress works to finalize the most important piece of food legislation—the coming 2024 Farm Bill—our elected leaders have an opportunity to make real progress on food waste. 

In the US, an estimated 77 million tons of food are wasted annually, even as one in eight American families struggles with hunger. Growing all that food that no one eats wastes financial and natural resources, while also contributing to climate change. Food is the number one item we throw into landfills, where it drives almost 60 percent of their methane emissions.

But there is an easy way to cut down a large portion of that food waste: Change the “best by” labeling system. According to new research by MITRE and Gallup, there are more than 50 different date label phrases in most grocery stores today—“sell by,” “use by,” “best if used by,” “enjoy by,” and so forth—leaving consumers confused about whether these terms refer to freshness, safety or other issues. As a result, one third of all consumers “often or always” throw away food that has passed its date label. The end result is that households and food businesses throw away perfectly wholesome food (6.5 million tons annually in the US, which is nearly 10 percent of all US food waste) and spend an average $1,500 a year per household on food that they then toss in the trash. 

The US has set a goal to halve its food waste by 2030. To accelerate progress, the Zero Food Waste Coalition (a group of nonprofits, major food businesses and communities) has come together to help advance two commonsense pieces of bipartisan legislation: the Food Date Labeling Act (FDLA) and the NO TIME TO Waste Act. Congress should pass both these acts in the upcoming Farm Bill.

The FDLA aims to establish a consistent, easy-to-understand food date labeling system, at no cost to the government. The FDLA would streamline food labeling into two simple categories: “Best If Used By” to communicate peak food quality and “Use By” to indicate the end of a product’s estimated shelf life. Most importantly, the act would launch an education campaign to help consumers understand the difference between these categories.

Simplified date labels are one of the most cost-effective strategies to reduce food waste across the supply chain—with the majority of the benefits going to consumers. The FDLA would also make more food available for donation by clarifying that food can still be donated after a quality date (which 20 states prohibit or restrict today). More than 23 industry leaders, such as Walmart and Unilever, have signed on in support of the FDLA.

In addition to the FDLA, the NO TIME TO Waste Act would establish an Office of Food Loss and Waste at the US Department of Agriculture. This office would spearhead a whole-of-government approach to reducing food waste, strengthen food waste research, create consumer awareness campaigns and support public-private partnerships and local food recovery efforts. 

These two pieces of legislation are a no-brainer for Congress to pass. Tackling food waste is good for consumers, businesses and the environment. Meeting our national goal of reducing food loss and waste by 50 percent would deliver a $73-billion annual net financial benefit (again, in large part to consumers), reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 million metric tons and create 51,000 jobs over 10 years. The 2024 Farm Bill is a golden opportunity to make meaningful progress in our fight against food waste, help families stretch their limited food dollars and transition to a more efficient and sustainable food system. 

Pete Pearson. Photography courtesy of Pete Pearson/WWF.

Pete Pearson is senior director of food waste with World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C.

The Zero Food Waste Coalition aims to inform and influence policy at the local, state and federal levels and share policy updates and opportunities with partners and stakeholders around the country to bring consumers, businesses and government together to make food loss and waste history. The Coalition was launched by NRDC, WWF, ReFE, and FLPC in April 2023, formalizing a partnership that began in January 2020.

Just off the coast of South Carolina sits St. Helena Island, a 64-square-mile stretch of moss-lined oaks and sandy roads surrounded by marshland. Black farmers have spent decades caring for the land on this island; the Gullah people who live here are the descendants of formerly enslaved people from West and Central Africa who worked in the region’s rice and indigo plantations. But encroaching development threatens to upend the island’s identity as an agriculturally minded working-class community.

The past few decades have brought changes to Gullah-Geechee communities in the Lowcountry, as ancestral land and farms have been turned into private, gated communities with golf courses as a playground for the wealthy, accompanied by higher taxes. But farming is still a big part of St. Helena’s industry, with both large farms and family operations, such as the Marshview Community Organic Farm, still in operation. 

In many cases, land has been passed down between generations, including the acreage of Tony and Belinda Jones, owners of Morning Glory Homestead Farm. It’s one of the handful remaining on an island that was once full of Black-owned farms. 

A shared journey to farming

Both with Gullah ancestry, Tony and Belinda met while attending South Carolina State University. They reunited at a friend’s wedding after Tony joined the military. 

“We were engaged in 1985. In April, we were married. It was the Anthony and Belinda Show,” she says. “From that point on, I was on the road. We were from one duty station to the next, and we have five children.” 

Tony’s job brought them to bases all over the world, including stints in Germany and Belgium. Belinda noticed that, at each place they were stationed, there was some sort of farming operation, whether a small herb garden or raised beds. She set up her own gardens to teach their kids about farming. 

“We found it very interesting that both [Tony and I] grew up with similar experiences in that our families had gardens and his grandparents had chickens and occasionally had hogs and so did mine,” she says. “I grew up helping my grandparents after school, when I was in first through eighth grade, feeding their chickens, helping with planting in their gardens, harvesting and collecting fruits from their fruit nut trees. They had pecans, black walnut trees, pomegranates, big trees, hard pears.”

The family moved back to the United States when Tony’s father’s health was failing. The Joneses started looking for land after his retirement, but one plot kept coming up on St. Helena Island. 

The 12-acre parcel was originally purchased by a formerly enslaved man in 1868 and passed down through the members of Tony’s family for generations. “His father bought it from another family member in 1968 when that person no longer wanted to be responsible for the upkeep of the property and paying the taxes and everything,” says Belinda. “But they wanted to make sure it stayed in the family.” It had been rented out to other farmers over the years but hadn’t been actively used for some time, instead doubling as a community softball field for the Seaside Sliders.

“We’ve known it’s been in his family for a long time,” says Belinda. “I guess it was more like a family investment, like, ‘Here’s something for you to consider and for your future,’ which was a wonderful thought.”

A family affair

Tony planned his retirement from the military in 2002 and his parents gifted him the family land. Unlike many of the farms on the island, Morning Glory is individually owned by the Joneses, not an “heirs’ property,” a term applied to land shared by heirs of the original owner, usually within the Gullah community and who often don’t have documents such as wills and titles. 

The Jones family cleared land and built a house, wired by Tony’s uncle. They started a small garden for the kids, who were getting involved with the 4H program, following the precision taught to Belinda by her grandfather, a brick mason.

The farm started out with chickens, selling eggs at the local farmers market. The operation has since expanded to include lettuce, okra and collards, plus pigs, goats, turkeys and ducks. The Jones farm follows traditional Gullah agricultural traditions during the island’s long growing season including permaculture, crop rotation and minimal tilling. (Although the Joneses don’t have cows, the Gullah-Geechee are also considered to be originators of free-range cattle, adapting to the landscape in a way that European methods didn’t.)

“At first, we were just doing this to feed the kids, everybody and teach them some great skills that they can always use if they have the inclination to do it later,” says Belinda. “They’re all grown now, but every now and then, they’ll put a seed or two in the ground or a container or something. And when they come back, well, they’re always interested in what we’re doing.” 

And it’s not just the Jones children that connect with the farm. Morning Glory Homestead also offers tours for school groups that bring students up close to the farm’s plants and animals. Family camp weekends allow visitors to stay on the island and learn about notable Black agriculturalists such as George Washington Carver. 

No gates, no golf

Black land loss is sadly nothing new, especially in the Gullah-Geechee communities. Hilton Head Island serves as a cautionary tale: Previously home to a large Gullah population, it is now a mostly white resort town. Officials in coastal Georgia voted for rezoning to allow an increase in home size on Sapelo Island, which residents of the Hogg Hummock community fear will attract the wealthy and force them out. And on neighboring Bay Point Island, a 2020 plan proposed an eco-resort among the unspoiled acreage, which was recently denied. It would have covered an area called Land’s End, surrounded by small farms, which was the site of a Civil War fortification that’s an important part of local history as it’s where enslaved people were freed, well before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. 

“There was a battle there called the Battle of Port Royal, where the Union Navy came up and attacked both of those facing forts and won.The Confederates left, and the Blacks call it the day of the ‘big gun shoot.’ The military term for the newspapers called it the ‘Great Skedaddle.’ So, all of the plantation owners left because now they were under Union occupation,” says Belinda. 

Attention is now turning to St. Helena, where signs around town say “No Gates, No Golf” in response to plans for a 500-acre resort. Farms are being lost to outside developers and economic hardship, especially due to these heirs’ properties. 

A sign protesting development in St. Helena. (Photo: Caroline Eubanks)

“The battle over that is still going on. There are already, within the St. Helena zip code, five golf courses, and two of them are directly on St. Helena; two are on Fripp [Island],” says Belinda. “Then, within Beaufort County, there are over 30 golf courses. So, why do we need one more?”

Family-run farms such as Morning Glory are an important way to protect the Gullah culture of St. Helena Island. Groups such as  the Pan-African Family Empowerment and Land Preservation Network, the Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation and the Penn Center’s Land Use and Environmental Education program are providing residents with much-needed assistance such as business workshops and legal services. 

For Belinda and Tony Jones, it’s not just about land ownership. They consider themselves stewards of this piece of St. Helena and want it to continue for generations as it is. 

“Don’t just kill that land out there just so people can come play on the back nine,” says Belinda. 

Bats are a captivating bunch, flying hundreds of miles, pinpointing prey with sonar and leading complex social lives. They’re also voracious predators of insects wreaking havoc on crops such as cotton, cocoa and rice.

By literally wiping out tons of pests every night, bats save US farmers an estimated $3.7 billion annually. Besides the bug carnage, bats also pollinate crops such as coconuts, agave, guava and bananas, disperse seeds and create fertilizer. 

However, these little mammals are under attack—more than half of North American bats risk severe population declines over the next 15 years. And agriculture, which destroys foraging and roosting habitat, is one of the greatest threats to bats. 

Yet farmers can be important allies for wildlife by using innovative practices to conserve bats. In turn, this mammalian air crew protects and pollinates their fields.

Pests and heirloom produce

“I know a lot of people are kind of freaked out by the bats but they are invaluable in sustainable agriculture—absolutely invaluable,” says Stephanie Miller, owner of Mystic Pine Farm in Virginia, which specializes in organic heirloom crops from the African diaspora.

Her farm is bustling with bat activity for several reasons.

“We don’t obviously use any chemicals because that’s also a main deterrent and that will definitely get rid of your bat population very quickly,” says Miller. 

Besides directly poisoning bats, pesticides and insect-resistant crops reduce the abundance of their prey. 

A wooded area on Mystic Pine Farm in Virginia. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Miller)

Miller also maintains oaks on her property to provide roosts for the bats and intentionally supplies food for her winged guests. 

“I grow night-blooming plants that attract the bats and give them nectar and feed them,” says Miller. “Also, I grow species of native plants and what I would consider medicinal herbs that they also like to feed off of or attract the food that they eat—things like purple coneflower, yucca and sunflowers.” 

Research backs these observations up: Lower-intensity practices such as agroforestry and organic farming support higher bat activity levels and diversity compared to more intensive agriculture.

Factors at the landscape level also come into play.

“You should always leave as much natural habitat as possible around your farms,” says Merlin Tuttle, a bat researcher and founder of Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation. “Where pests do the worst damage is where you have huge monocultures, where for miles and miles you have nothing but corn or soybeans or wheat planted. And in those cases, bats and other natural predators can’t survive the off-season. After you harvest the corn or the wheat, there’s no pests out there to eat.” 

In turn, Miller benefits from having bats around.

“I’m using nature, including the bats, to control my pest population,” says Miller. “And bats do a lot of work. They actually pollinate certain crops. They also eat pests that might be an issue and keep those populations under control.”

For instance, bats kill corn earworms, a major pest of popcorn and one of Miller’s main crops. 

“I’m using nature, including the bats, to control my pest population,” says Virginia farmer Stephanie Miller. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Miller)

Pecan protection 

While Miller exemplifies a bat-friendly farmer, she’s not alone. Through Merlin Tuttle’s Bat Conservation and Bat Conservation International, pecan farmers are learning how to cut down on pests by installing bat houses.

One example is John Worth Byrd, owner of a sustainable pecan farm in central Texas.

“We have three moth-born pests here, the walnut caterpillar, the pecan nut casebearer and the hickory shuckworm,” says Byrd. “But the bats, their primary food is moths. So, I thought, well that’s great. Some people in Georgia had done it, put bat houses into their pecan orchards. So, I started putting up bat houses.” 

Byrd has five species of bats on his property. Some forage in wide open spaces away from their roosts, while others dine locally in the orchard canopy. While all the bats suppress pecan pests, the locavores kill the most. 

Byrd uses a couple of strategies to help his bats. Besides putting up bat boxes, he doesn’t spray any pesticides on his property. In addition, if a tree dies in his orchard, he leaves it up. 

“A lot of these bats roost in these old dead pecan trees…” says Byrd.

“The best bats were staying in these cavities, not as many numbers like the [Brazilian] free tails in my houses, but they were doing a lot. They were local feeders instead of feeding in the atmosphere.” 

Unsurprisingly, all this pest-munching is valuable.

“If people could actually see what bats are doing, they’d be lined up to protect them,” says Tuttle. “It’s estimated by our Parks and Wildlife Department here in Texas that consumption of insect pests is saving Texas farmers approximately $1.4 billion annually.”

Aiding agaves

One of Mexico’s most iconic products has also jumped on the bat conservation bandwagon.

Through the Tequila Interchange Project, tequila and mezcal producers are growing bat-friendly agaves. These spiky plants are normally cloned, but letting some of them flower has several advantages. Night-blooming flowers provide nectar for bats, including an endangered species, the Mexican long-nosed bat. By feeding on the flowers, bats also pollinate them.

Commercial farming of blue agave, used for tequila, has eroded its genetic diversity and increased its susceptibility to disease. For instance, in the 1990s, a combination of bacteria and fungus spread through agave fields, and nearly 25 percent of the crop was abandoned.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by agave farmers. 

“They understand that something is happening,” says Irene Zapata Moran, a doctoral student at the University of Wyoming. “They see that there are more diseases in the crops. And people who have been in this industry all their life, they have told me they remember before that the plants used to be bigger.”

A lesser long-nosed bat feeds on an agave blossom in Arizona. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Bat pollination is seen as a solution, because as opposed to cloning genetically identical plants, sexual reproduction brings in new genes. This could also increase the plant’s ability to adapt to climate change.

However, allowing for natural pollination of agaves involves a direct financial hit for farmers. 

Farmers normally cut the flower stalks on the agave to allow the sugar to be concentrated in the core. After harvesting, they use this core for tequila production. 

“They’re completely rivals—you cannot have agaves in bloom and tequila from the same plot,” says Zapata Moran.

One solution could be for tequila producers to charge a premium price for bat-friendly products. Offsetting just a portion of their sunken costs could be an effective way to incentivize farmers who may not be motivated to give up some of their crops in the name of biodiversity.

The vast swaths of cropland and pasture blanketing the globe present a golden opportunity for bat conservation. And, with more than 18 percent of species listed as threatened globally, bats need all the help they can get. While sustainable practices require funding, cost-sharing programs, such as those from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, can help farmers. Plus, the payoff is worth it—bats are an eco-friendly solution for many agricultural woes.