Modern Farmer 10/22/22 Journal-Courier

MODERN FARMER

Clearing up misconceptions about farming

ON THE COVER: Farmers harvest fields in Scott County as the season draws to a close for another year. USDA estimates say statewide corn yield per acre is expected to rise slightly from last year, although the 10.7 million acres planted in Illinois was down 3% from 2021. Soybeans could bring a record 66 bushels per acre yield in Illinois this year after seeing a 6% increase in acres planted, at 11.2 million. There are an estimated 5,988 corn and soybean farmers in Morgan and surrounding counties.

Darren Iozia/Journal-Courier

Clearing up misconceptions about farming

By Ben Singson R EPORTER

Farming is ubiquitous in  west­central Illinois, with farmland seemingly everywhere.

Despite this, many people outside the agriculture industry still have misconceptions about the work that farmers do. Farmers cleared the air about the time, effort and capital it takes to make it in the agriculture industry.

Bryan Richardson, a

farmhand at Richardson Farms, said the one thing that non­farmers don’t understand about farming, in his opinion, was the amount of time it takes to be a farmer.

“They think most farmers just work six months out of the year and then they go on vacation,” he said. “But that’s not the case. Most farmers, they have livestock yearround, seven days a week, sometimes 24 hours a day.”

Richardson said a normal day for him starts at 6 a.m., where he takes care of chores and cattle, which he said was a two­hour ordeal. His day ends at around 9 or 10 p.m., he said, and the kind of work he gets done depends on the time of year.

“There’s always maintenance to do on everything,” Richardson said.

“There’s never a typical routine of the day.”

Jacob Freeman of Freeman Seed in Murrayville

said many people didn’t understand how much money went into agriculture, particularly the inputs such as seed and farming equipment. He said these expenses impact farmers by limiting what they can do with things like fertilizer and herbicide. Many consumers are trying to pursue organic crops, he said.

“I’m not saying that’s a bad thing,” Jacob Freeman said. “It’s just defi­

Roelof Bos/Getty Images

Bryan Richardson, a farmhand at Richardson Farms, said the one thing non­farmers don't understand about farming, in his opinion, is the amount of time it takes to be a farmer.

Concept

CONCEPT

nitely a different way we have to reorganize our operation to their wants, I guess.”

Jon Freeman, also of Freeman Seed, concurred, saying that nonfarmers were unaware of “the investment, the knowledge and the time” that went into agriculture. Many legislators try to write laws about agriculture without knowing how it works, he said.

“Now, we’re getting a lot of government regulation from legislators and people that do not know what it actually takes... for us to be able to grow the food and put the products on the table,” he said.

Jon Freeman referred to a Californian animal welfare law called Proposition 12 as an example of what he saw as people who don’t know about ag­

riculture trying to regulate it. The law, which is currently in front of the Supreme Court, bans the sale of pork, veal and eggs which come from animals whose cages failed to meet minimum space requirements.

Proposition 12 is being fought over by the pork industry and animal rights activists. Jon Freeman said the people who wrote the law “are not knowledgeable enough or don’t have any experience to actually know what really needs to be done.”

Ashland farmer Andy McClain seconded Jacob Freeman’s claims on both chemical use and the cost of farming

“Everybody’s looking for a product in the grocery store on the shelf that’s priced right for them,” he said, “but they don’t realize what goes into the production of agriculture and the cost involved.”

KDP/Getty Images

Jacob Freeman of Freeman Seed in Murrayville said many people don’t understand how much money goes into agriculture, particularly seed and farming equipment. He said those expenses impact farmers by limiting what they can do with things like fertilizer and herbicide.

Farmers, gardeners taking steps to prevent weeds

By Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree

R EPORTER

Though the temperatures are cooling off as farmers remove their crops from the fields and gardeners are tending to the last yields from their gardens, there are plants and weeds that will grow in the place of the vegetables and flowers.

Fall and winter weeds can start taking root in the fields or garden without proper care.

For gardens, the growth of some weeds isn’t uncommon or usually a big concern.

Ken Johnson, horticulture educator at the University of Illinois Extension Office for Morgan County, said gardeners should find balance when weeding their gardens during the fall and winter months.

“This time of year Chickweed and a few other types of weeds are common and will start to

germinate,” Johnson said. “They tend to have a fall to spring life span.”

For those Johnson said gardeners who do not want those weeds in the garden it is important to remove the seed heads will help stop future spread and growth.

Once those are removed, Johnson said the weeds themselves can be mixed up with any mulching like leaves or wood chips to help provide coverage and nutrients for the ground during the winter months. Mulching will also help prevent weed growth.

“During the fall and winter months, nutrients are being sent down to the roots,” Johnson said. “If you are using a herbicides it’s easier for them to get down to the roots.”

Mulching also helps with water retention.

Or, gardeners can leave them where they are and they’ll be mixed into the soil when it comes time to till the

ground.

Johnson said weeds provide a source of food for pollinators during the colder months.

But for farmers, there is more concern about nutrient lose than with gardens.

Aaron Dufelmeier, director of the Extension office in Morgan, said fall and winter weeds can cause a lose of nutrients or throw off the nutrient balance of a field prior to the spring planting season.

Dufelmeier said the recently dry conditions have been a good thing for farmers getting their crop out of the ground, but said it can also help prevent some of the germination of those fall weeds.

“Farmers have been using fall burndowns or herbicide applications to help prevent some of that growth,” Dufelmeier said. “It allows for farmers to get into the field sooner, either planting or

tilling.”

Weed growth over the winter months can cause farmer to have to spend time clearing their fields before they can plant in the spring, which can already be difficult if it is particularly rainy.

“Weeds impact drying conditions and increases work,” Dufelmeier said. “Herbicide can prevent

growth, or kill off what it there.”

Morgan County farmer Marty Marr said a fall application of herbicide is something that is becoming more common as a way of preventing more growth on the fields.

“This is something we do for every acre,” Marr said. “We found it necessary going into the the

spring planting so that the fields aren’t already covered in winter annuals. We don’t have that pressure and we are starting with a clean slate if we have herbicides in the fall.

With farmers doing more work in the fall to prepare for the spring planting season, Dufelmeier said any new growth or changes can impact what has been done already.

Soil testing and fertilizers and other chemical programs can often begin in the fall. If results come back in the fall, they could change by spring if there is another plant, or weed, that grows and takes nutrients from the ground.

“Farmers look at the fertility for next year’s crop, they look at anhydrous applications,” Dufelmeier said. “If they apply what’s need and then have a high weed growth, they have to figure out how much it is taking away from the crop. Each situation is different. It just depends on the applications farmers use.”

Dufelmeier said it can also be a financial things as herbicides can be easier and cheaper to get during the fall versus the spring.

Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree/Journal-Courier

Ken Johnson looks for weeds in the garden at his home.

More consumers buying organic, but farmers still wary

By Scott McFetridge A SSOCIATED PRESS

In the 1970s, when George Naylor said he wanted to grow organic crops, the idea didn’t go over well.

Back then organic crops were an oddity, destined for health food stores or maybe a few  farmers markets.

“I told my dad I wanted to be an organic farmer and he goes, ‘Ha, ha, ha,’” Naylor said, noting it wasn’t until 2014 that he could embrace his dream and begin transitioning from standard to organic crops.

But over the decades, something unexpected happened — demand for organics started increasing so fast that it began outstripping the supply produced in the U.S.

Now a new challenge has emerged: It’s not getting consumers to pay the higher prices, it’s convincing enough farmers to get past their organic reluctance and start taking advantage of the revenue pouring in.

Instead of growing to meet the demand, the number of farmers converting to organic is actually dropping. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has committed up to $300 million to recruit and help more farmers make the switch.

“It feels good,” said Chris Schreiner, executive director of the organic­certifying organization Oregon Tilth, referring to the government help. “It’s a milestone in the arc of this work.”

Schreiner, who has worked at the organization since 1998, said expanding technical training is important given the vast differences in farming land conventionally and organically. Schreiner noted that one farmer told him that converting a conventional farmer was like asking “a foot doctor to become a

heart surgeon.”

The key difference is the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as well as genetically modified seeds. Most conventional farms rely on those practices but they are banned at organic farms. Instead, organic farmers must control weeds and pests with techniques such as rotating different crops and planting cover crops that squeeze out weeds and add nutrients to the soil.

Crops can only be deemed organic if they are grown on land that hasn’t been treated with synthetic substances for three years. During that period, farmers can grow crops, but they won’t get the extra premium that accompanies organic crops.

According to the USDA, the number of conventional farms newly transitioning to organic production dropped by about 70% from 2008 to 2019. Organic

comprises about 6% of overall food sales, but only 1% of the country’s farmland is in organic production, with foreign producers making up the gap.

In the U.S, “There are so many barriers to farmers making that leap to organic,” said Megan DeBates, vice president of government affairs for the Organic Trade Association.

While farmers seem hesitant, U.S. consumers aren’t. Annual sales of or­

ganic products have roughly doubled in the past decade and now top $63 billion, according to the Organic Trade Association. Sales are projected to climb up to 5.5% this year.

That growth is clear to anyone pushing a cart in an average supermarket, past bins of organic apples and bananas, through dairy and egg sections and along shelves brimming with organic beef and chicken.

The new USDA effort

would include $100 million toward helping farmers learn new techniques for growing organic crops; $75 million for farmers who meet new conservation practice standards; $25 million to expand crop insurance options and reduce costs; and $100 million to aid organic supply chains and develop markets for organics.

Nick Andrews, an extension agent who works with organic farmers,

called the USDA effort a “game changer.” It should be especially attractive to farmers with small parcels of land because the added value of organic crops makes it possible to make significant money off even 25 to 100 acre farms — much smaller than the commercial operations that provide most of the country’s produce.

“I’ve seen organic farmers keep families in business who otherwise would go out of business,” Andrews said.

Noah Wendt, who in the past few years has transitioned 1,500 acres of land in to organic, noted the shift has been “rocky” at times for him and his farming partner, Caleb Akin.

But he and Akin recently bought a grain elevator to use solely for organic crops, the kind of project the USDA program can assist. They hope the elevator will not only be a nearby spot to store grain but provide a one­stop shop to learn about growing and marketing organic crops.

Seeing all the organic activity is gratifying for George and Patti Naylor. But they say they still value most the simple benefits of their choice, such as evenings spent watching hundreds of rare monarch butterflies that flock to their herbicide­free farm.

As Patti Naylor put it, “It really helps to believe in what you’re doing.”

Charlie Neibergall/AP

Illinois joins partnership backing hydrogen as energy source

A SSOCIATED PRESS

Seven Midwestern states have teamed up to accelerate the development of hydrogen as a clean­energy alternative for automobiles and factories that rely largely on climate­warming fossil fuels.

The partnership includes Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, whose economies are dominated by agriculture and heavy industry such as steel and automobile manufacturing.

“The Midwest will continue leading the future of mobility and energy innovation and has enormous potential for transformative hydrogen investments,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said.

Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas that already powers some cars, trucks, buses and trains. But a shortage of fueling stations limits their appeal. Some environmen­

A Toyota Motor Corp. hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, called Mirai, arrives at a charge station. Seven Midwestern states are teaming up to accelerate the development of hydrogen as a clean­energy alternative for automobiles and factories that rely largely on climate­warming fossil fuels.

talists are skeptical because most commercially produced hydrogen in the U.S. comes from natural gas, which emits greenhouse pollutants carbon dioxide and methane.

But hydrogen can be derived using electric cur­

rents from wind, solar or other means that produce few if any emissions contributing to global warming. Such “clean hydrogen” releases only water as a byproduct when used in a fuel cell.

“We don’t have to

choose between clean energy and clean air and creating good­paying jobs and a strong economy — we can do both,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said.

The federal infrastructure law enacted last year included $8 billion for the

U.S. Department of Energy to fund regional “hubs” that would step up clean hydrogen production and distribution.

Climate legislation that President Joe Biden signed offers a tax credit intended to make clean hydrogen more competitive.

Those measures “made it almost certain that clean hydrogen development will become a major alternative for producing energy both in the Midwest and nationally,” said Zachary Kolodin, Michigan’s chief infrastructure officer.

States in the Rocky Mountains and the Deep South announced regional associations earlier this year. Another was proposed for the Los Angeles Basin in California.

The Midwestern Hydrogen Coalition hasn’t committed to joint pursuit of federal funding, although smaller groups of states or industries might seek grants.

Instead, the seven­state

partnership will focus on boosting development, markets, supply chains and a work force for clean hydrogen, according to a joint statement.

It will take advantage of assets such as the region’s pipelines and tanks for distributing and storing ammonia, which consists largely of hydrogen and is a key ingredient in fertilizer.

Hydrogen “could help us end the use of fossil fuels, and it could be especially helpful for industry, which is the hardest to decarbonize,” said Charlotte Jameson, chief policy officer with the Michigan Environmental Council. “But not all hydrogen is clean.”

Midwest states should focus on hydrogen made from renewables and should not use their coalition to “delay moving our power systems to renewable energy and electrifying our buildings and transportation,” Jameson said. “We have the solutions and the momentum to do that now.”

Shizuo Kambayashi/AP

How a rare fruit went TikTok viral

By Carlos Frias M IAMI HERALD

Rane Roatta and Edelle Schlegel can predict when one of the rare tropical fruits they grow on their farm is destined to go viral on TikTok.

“If it’s an odd color or appears somewhat phallic,” Roatta says, laughing.

Press record. Film Roatta taking a machete to a cluster of blue bananas with the consistency of ice cream. Or give two girlfriends the “world’s largest banana,” and ask them to eat the yellow pylon on camera.

Watch Schlegel slice open a round purple fruit to reveal the magical multipoint design inside. Or devour a longneck avocado that could star on FruitHub.

But there’s also the nostalgic: Watch Roatta crack

open a Spanish lime and ask their one million TikTok followers what they call the fruit in their home countries — mamoncillo, kenep, quenepa, what else?

Comments ensue. Millions of views pile up. And so do the orders to their online company, Miami Fruit, which sends boxes of these Rorschach rainbows to followers around the country.

Call them the fruit influencers.

Roatta, 29, and Schlegel, 25, harnessed social media’s devotion to that which is strange and nostalgic (and possibly profane). They use it to market and sell the niche tropical fruit to the rest of the country.

Many found them while they were home during the pandemic, learning to shop for groceries online or escaping to the internet for mindless videos. Their site, Miami Fruit, gave them

both.

Their videos feature way more than mangoes. Think of fruits with names (depending on the country) like caimito and tamarillo, longan and langsat, jaboticaba and June plums. They have spikes or seed pods or resemble the human anatomy to those who can’t keep their mind out of the gutter. And they attract both the adventurous and the nostalgic.

Regional variations of their names fuel arguments in the comments as the videos are shared and reshared. The eye­catching TikToks and Instagram Reels turned the young couple into social media tastemakers.

Theirs was a union that could only have started on social media.

Roatta had already been through a midlife crisis in his early twenties when

Schlegel first saw him talking about tropical fruits on YouTube in 2015.

By that time, Roatta, a graduate of New World School of the Arts, had giv­

en up on a career as a professional saxophone player. Roatta graduated from the prestigious Brubeck Institute in the Bay Area, started by jazz great Dave Brubeck, but told his parents he didn’t want a career as a backup musician, touring with the likes of Steely Dan for union scale.

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That sounded like a dream to his father, Claude, a longtime musician who owns an exotic palm tree nursery he named after his first band, Action Theory. Instead, Rane followed his father down the agricultural path — even through being red­green colorblind made it tougher.

“I understood if you find something you love to do, you’ll make a living at it because it’s your passion,” Claude Roatta said.

Roatta had grown up helping his father at his nursery and Claude has memories of Rane as a toddler, in nothing but a diaper, helping him plant seeds in tiny starter cups.

“The mamey doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Rane Roatta said.

Rane wanted to peddle fruit — sort of. Roatta, a cycling hobbyist who had already devoted himself to becoming vegan, was 20

when he attached a trailer to his bike and rode from South Miami to the Redland, where be bought 500 pounds of tropical fruits from local growers. One of them is Don Chafin, who has been growing dozens of rare varieties of bananas and lychees at his farm, Going Bananas, for nearly 40 years.

“His clients are getting unusual tasting and looking fruit. He’s offering something different,” Chafin said.

Roatta tried selling them locally at weekly farmers markets — with little success.

Maybe that’s because South Floridians are spoiled with backyards that are bursting with native fruit, mangoes and papayas, avocados of many varieties, lychees and limes that they swap and share. Not to mention the viandero fruit trucks that park in neighborhoods and the mom­and­pop fruit stands.

The business, he learned, was national. When Rane posted photos of the fruit he sold at farmers markets on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, fruit aficionados re­shared his photos. He got messag­

Matias J. Ocner/AP Rane Roatta and Edelle Schlegel, founders of Miami Fruit, shoot video of blue java bananas at their farm.

Efforts under way to provide high-speed internet access to rural areas

By Kevin Bessler

state broadband maps with the most accurate, detailed data possible.

the largest amount at $212 million.

T HE CENTER SQUARE andreswd/Getty Images

Now that the federal government included billions of tax dollars in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to improve internet access to more areas, the task of broadband mapping in Illinois is under way.

The Illinois Office of Broadband and its mapping vendor, Connected Nation, are using the mapping efforts to provide internet access to hard to reach areas and make best use of all available federal broadband funds.

Ashley Hitt, vice president of GeoAnalytics at Connected Nation, said they are updating the

“Being able to aggregate all of that together, then being able to run some estimates on the number of served and underserved households there are across the state, so that way we can then look county-by-county and see which counties are the least connected that may need more assistance,” Hitt said.

The Federal Communications Commission recently announced that it was authorizing around $800 million for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund for six providers to expand broadband in 19 states, including Illinois, which received

“This round of funding supports projects using a range of network technologies, including gigabit service hybrid fiber/ fixed wireless deployments that will provide end-user locations with either fiber or fixed wireless network service using licenses spectrum,” the FCC said in a news release.

Funding is being provided in the form of low-interest loans from the Department of Agriculture as part of the ReConnect program. Egyptian Telephone Cooperative Association will receive a $25 million loan to hook up residences, businesses and farms in southern Illinois to high-speed internet.

The Federal Communications Commission recently announced that it was authorizing around $800 million for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund for six providers to expand broadband in 19 states, including Illinois, which received the largest amount at $212 million.

It is part of $502 million in loans and grants the USDA awarded to 20 states for dozens of projects that will provide 100 megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds to rural homes and businesses.

“Upload and download speeds simply don’t allow for

multiple uses at home, don’t accommodate distance learning and telemedicine and don’t allow businesses to expand market opportunities and would not allow farmers the opportunity for precision agriculture,” USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Which wetlands receive protection? Court revisits question

By Albert C. Lin

U NIVERSITY OF C ALIFORNIA-DAVIS VIA T HE CONVERSATION

The U.S. Supreme Court opened its new session on Oct. 3 with a high-profile case that could fundamentally alter the federal government’s ability to address water pollution. Sackett v. EPA turns on a question that courts and regulators have struggled to answer for several decades: Which wetlands and bodies of water can the federal government regulate under the 1972 Clean Water Act?

Under this keystone environmental law, federal agencies take the lead in regulating water pollution, while state and local governments regulate land use. Wetlands are areas where land is wet for all or part of the year, so they straddle this division of authority.

Swamps, bogs, marshes and other wetlands provide valuable ecological services, such as filtering pollutants and soaking up floodwaters. Landowners must obtain permits to discharge dredged or fill material, such as dirt, sand or rock, in a protected wetland. This can be time-consuming and expensive, which is why the case is of keen interest to developers, farmers and ranchers, along with conservationists and the agencies that administer the Clean Water Act — the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Supreme Court has already shown a willingness to curb federal regulatory power on environmental issues. From my work as an environmental law scholar, I expect the court’s decision in this case to cut back on the types of wetlands that qualify for federal protection.

The Sackett case Idaho residents Chantell

The court case Sackett v. EPA turns on a question that courts and regulators have struggled to answer for several decades: Which wetlands and bodies of water can the federal government regulate under the 1972 Clean Water Act?

and Mike Sackett own a parcel of land located 300 feet from Priest Lake, one of the state’s largest lakes. The parcel once was part of a large wetland complex. Today, even after the Sacketts cleared the lot, it still has some wetland characteristics, such as saturation and ponding in areas where soil was removed. Indeed, it is still hydrologically connected to the lake and neighboring wetlands by water that flows at a shallow depth underground.

In preparation to build a house, the Sacketts had fill material placed on the site without obtaining a Clean Water Act permit. The EPA issued an order in 2007 stating that the land contained wetlands subject to the law and requiring the Sacketts to restore the site. The Sacketts sued, arguing that their property was not a wetland.

In 2012, the Supreme Court held that the Sacketts had the right to challenge EPA’s order and sent the case back to the lower courts. Now, after losing below on the merits, they are back before the Supreme Court. The current issue is whether the Sacketts’ property is federally protected, which in turn raises a broader question: What is the scope of federal regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act?

‘Waters of the US’

The Clean Water Act regulates discharges of pollutants into “waters of the United States.” Lawful discharges may occur if a pollution source obtains a permit under either Section 404 of the Act for dredged or fill

material, or Section 402 for other pollutants.

The Supreme Court has previously recognized that the “waters of the United States” include not only navigable rivers and lakes, but also wetlands and waterways that are connected to navigable bodies of water. However, many wetlands are not wet year-round, or are not connected at the surface to larger water systems, but can still have important ecological connections to larger water bodies.

In 2006, when the court last took up this issue, no majority was able to agree on how to define “waters of the United States.” Writing for a plurality of four justices in U.S. v. Rapanos, Justice Antonin Scalia defined the term narrowly to include only relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water such as streams,

oceans, rivers and lakes. Waters of the U.S., he contended, should not include “ordinarily dry channels through which water occasionally or intermittently flows.”

Acknowledging that wetlands present a tricky linedrawing problem, Scalia proposed that the Clean Water Act should reach “only those wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own right.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy took a very different approach. “Waters of the U.S.,” he wrote, should be interpreted in light of the Clean Water Act’s objective of “restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.”

Accordingly, Kennedy argued, the Clean Water Act

should cover wetlands that have a “significant nexus” with navigable waters — “if the wetlands, either alone or in combination with similarly situated lands in the region, significantly affect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of other covered waters more readily understood as ‘navigable.’”

Neither Scalia’s nor Kennedy’s opinion attracted a majority, so lower courts have been left to sort out which approach to follow. Most have applied Kennedy’s significant nexus standard, while a few have held that the Clean Water Act applies if either Kennedy’s standard or Scalia’s is satisfied.

Regulators have also struggled with this question. The Obama administration incorporated Kennedy’s “significant nexus” approach in-

Wetlands continues on A19

Xuanyu Han/Getty Images

MODERN

Don’t throw away dried plants; build a pollinator nest

By Maddie Ellis T RIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Where some people might see a dried-out sunflower stalk, Emily Moorhead-Wallace sees a home.

Some gardeners toss twigs, thatch and branches at the end of fall to prepare for winter. But those dry plant materials are where some pollinator species — such as bees, butterflies, wasps, flies and beetles — hibernate through the winter to emerge next spring.

Instead of throwing away the debris, there’s a crafty alternative: build a pollinator nest.

Moorhead-Wallace and her husband, John Taylor Wallace of Bridgeport, are artists who are teaching community members how to do just that. Through workshops at local gardens, the couple is gathering material for their new project while showing participants how to make their own nest bundles.

With grant funding from the E(art)H Chicago initiative, which awarded money to 11 projects to inspire action on climate change and environmental justice, the pair plans to make sculptures that will serve as a resource for pollinators and other wildlife in Sherman Park in

Back of the Yards. These sculptures will be made out of Corten steel, a material that weathers to a rusty texture built to last. The facade will feature laser-cut imagery designed by the community. Inside the sculptures will sit porous nesting cavities made of garden waste and pieces of a recycled ash tree.

Each nest may not look like much, just a bundle of hollow twigs or stems tied together with twine that in profile resembles a bunch of open holes. But this bundle can provide a dry place for pollinators to nestle in winter or somewhere to lay their eggs in spring.

“A bee will nest in any weird, random hole,” said Alan Molumby, a clinical associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who researches urban pollinators.

And now — as plants dry out, stems harden and temperatures drop — is the perfect time to gather this hollow material pollinators love, Moorhead-Wallace said.

Illinois is home to more than 80 species of bees, ranging from hardy species that tend to thrive everywhere to more rare native breeds that prefer specific types of wetland or forest preserve, Molumby said.

Each species has specific conditions for how and where they will nest, he said. Some prefer to burrow underground or in sand, while others opt for cavities of wood or plant matter.

As their indigenous habitats continue to disappear with growing infrastructure and development, everyday Chicagoans can make their yards more hospitable to the pollinators that make gardens fruitful.

“What we want to do is make the remaining habitat as good as we can,” said Emily Minor, a professor in the biological sciences department at UIC.

One option is just to leave the thatch and twigs from your fall garden as is, Molumby said. But leaving these plant materials means fighting against some of the standards of garden maintenance that solely prioritize appearance. A similar effort that battles such appearance standards is No Mow May, in which residents let their lawns grow wild to provide for pollinators.

But for those who still want to exert some creative control over their yard, creating nests can serve as a happy medium, Wallace said.

A community effort

Leading up to their structures’ activation set for June, Moorhead-Wallace and Wallace are hosting workshops to teach community members how to make these nests.

“One of the best parts about all these engagements is what people do in their yard after,” Moorhead-Wallace said.

In a fenced-in patch of green sits Star Farm Chicago, a nonprofit urban farm program. The farm hosted monthly family garden days throughout the summer, and for the last event of the season, Moorhead-Wallace and Wallace set up a table with information about their project.

As kids streamed in after school, the duo gave a short demonstration and set them to work collecting dried plants and stalks, armed with green, orange and yellow wicker baskets. The kids trimmed hollow dried branches and hauled sunflower stalks more than twice their size, as adult volunteers cut down the material with a saw.

The team of kids worked with vigor, with 10-year-old America Ortega serving as a de facto leader, offering encouragement and checking everyone’s work.

“I can’t keep up!” Wallace

Some gardeners toss twigs, thatch and branches at the end of fall to prepare for winter. But those dry plant materials are where some pollinator species — such as bees, butterflies, wasps, flies and beetles — hibernate through the winter to emerge next spring.

said as the pile of branches and stalks grew.

America isn’t scared of insects, although she does consider herself a bit of an arachnophobe, she said.

When she spotted a bee on a stray stem near a puddle of

water, she picked up the stalk and carried it to a dry area.

“I saved a bee from drowning,” she declared.

When she found a dead monarch butterfly, she picked up its paper-thin wings between two twigs and laid it in a flower bed to bury it and held an impromptu funeral. Her sister Allyson, 6, placed fallen flower heads around it to mark the spot.

Monarch butterflies recently migrated across Illinois and data suggest the population is on the decline. Guadalupe Garcia, project manager for the Star Farm Chicago location, said growing up in Mexico, she remembers witnessing streaks of orange wings fly across the sky every year. Now, Garcia worries for the insect’s future after finding only four monarch eggs at a Star Farm

KarenHBlack/Getty Images

It’s the wild, wild west for Illinois hemp growers

By Zeta Cross T HE CENTER SQUARE

Hemp legalization set off a “gold rush” of hemp cultivation by enthusiastic growers across the country. Four years later, a significant number of hemp growers have left the business. And the amount of planted hemp acreage has dropped considerably.

The Farm Bill of 2018 legalized the growing of hemp in the United States for the first time since the 1970s. Hemp and hemp seeds were taken off the Drug Enforcement Administration’s schedule of controlled substances.

But despite the legalization, hemp growers are facing many challenges. Those who are still at it are always adapting as the government considers regulations and farmers struggle to find processors.

As a researcher and a commercial agriculture administrator with the University of Illinois Extension, Phil Alberti advises hemp growers across Illinois. He sympathizes with the growers as they try to navigate the emerging hemp market and the evolving regulations.

“We are in a very infant industry and we have a long way to go,” Alberti, an enthusiastic advocate for the fledgling hemp industry, told The Center Square.

Alberti compares growing hemp today to growing corn in the 1920s and 1930s.

“We’re figuring out the genetics. We’re figuring out best management practices,” Alberti said.

When a farmer grows corn today, the farmer knows where the elevator is to go to sell the corn, Alberti said. Prices

are structured. Corn futures give farmers an idea of future prices.

“We don’t have that with hemp,” Alberti said. “There is not a repository for processing. It just hasn’t developed yet.”

There are not enough processing facilities where the hemp can be turned into crude oil and flour. Hemp growers are running into bottlenecks at harvest time if they don’t have processing lined up before they start growing

“That is still shaking out to this day,” Alberti said.

Government regulation is another hurdle for hemp growers. In 2022, in-person field testing was mandated, much to the chagrin of growers. Hemp growers can no

longer send samples of their hemp in for testing. Growers are now required to pay for the time and travel costs of getting testers to their farms to gather samples. Some growers are paying as much as $1,000 for required tests, Alberti said.

The change has hurt hemp growers’ bottom lines.

Rules and regulations will continue to change, Alberti said. 2023 promises to bring new requirements. Alberti said he is encouraged that state and federal government regulators are anxious to evaluate new research and are listening to growers’ comments. But growers continue to pay the price for operating in a changing marketplace.

Hemp has a great deal of promise as animal

feed, Alberti said. Hemp is a fast growing, nutritious crop with deep roots that can outcompete a lot of weeds. Hemp requires only half the amount of nitrogen fertilizer that corn does. Alberti gets a lot of inquiries from livestock farmers who are interested in growing it, he said. Unfortunately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is still wrestling with the safety of allowing animals destined for slaughter to eat hemp.

“What’s fascinating is that people can buy hemp hearts and hemp hulls and eat them and feed them to children, but right now it is illegal to feed them to animals that are raised for human consumption,” Alberti said.

The Farm Bill of 2018 legalized the growing of hemp in the United States for the first time since the 1970s. Hemp and hemp seeds were taken off the Drug Enforcement Administration’s schedule of controlled substances.

The ability to grow hemp for livestock feed remains on hold until the FDA decides on guidelines, he said.

Getty Images

disease and the need for antibiotics — and allows various species to be raised year-round in landlocked areas.

The method is costly, though, precluding many small- and mid-size farmers. Searcy, whose farm runs entirely on the technology, cautioned that the operation is also completely dependent on electricity. Environmental activists argue that recirculating aquaculture systems require abundant water resources, and they voice concerns about the disposal of waste.

Tyler Isaac, aquaculture program manager for Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, said that with sustainably sourced fish feed and proper precautions, the recirculating systems could lead to more fish farms in the Midwest.

“It’s always a game of tradeoffs, but I think at the end of the day, recirculating systems are a really

good step forward,” Isaac said, adding that renewable energy sources would also make such operations more environmentally friendly. “The development of an aquaculture industry in a place like the Midwest is a good thing. It just needs to be done with appropriate safeguards.”

Morris said other emerging technologies — such as AquaBounty’s genetically modified Atlantic salmon being grown in Indiana that grow faster and are less susceptible to disease — could also be “very attractive for producers,” although it could be “several years” before similar genetically altered fish become mainstream.

“In terms of Midwest aquaculture overall, the growth has got to be with the food-fish operation. That’s where your market is — a consumer basis,” Morris said. “There are only so many ponds to stock out in the Midwest, only so many anglers. But there are consumers wanting to eat more and more fish in Midwest. We have to focus on that.”

FRUIT

From page A12

es from around the country, begging for boxes of whatever fruit he would sell them.

His entire business went online, and Miami Fruit was born.

Other fruit-obsessed growers invited him onto their YouTube channels, which is where Schlegel saw him and commented, “Beautiful!” She meant the fruit, but also him.

“He seemed like a cool, fruity guy,” she said.

Schlegel had grown up the youngest of three sisters raised by a firefighter mom and police officer dad. Her mother died when she was 7, and it was up to her father, Ed, to encourage his youngest when she started planting fruits and vegetables in a corner of their yard because she wanted her family to eat better.

“Pretty soon there was fruit all over the house,” said Ed Schlegel. “She started talking about ‘sustainable this, organic that.’”

The day she tasted a mango for the first time, at a farmers market near her house when she was 15, “I became a fruit snob,” she said. By 16 she was vegan.

She sought out a college that offered instruction in how to raise tropical fruits and attended the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

When Rane mentioned in a YouTube video he was visiting, she messaged him and they met up. A year later, he visited her again when she was home from college.

“And that’s when we fell in love,” she said.

She liked and followed him — on social media and IRL.

She left school. And they drove cross country and moved into a trailer in the backyard of his mother’s house, where they started selling a bounty of fruit to Rane’s small but devoted group of customers around the country.

Edelle built Miami Fruit a simple, functional, Shopify website that made it easy to take orders. And she took over all the social media, including Insta-

gram, posting as much as three times a day, where that audience has grown to more than 359,000 followers. She started a daily newsletter.

In two years, they had raised enough money to buy 2.5 acres of fruit farmland for $150,000 from the late tropical fruit advocate Bill Lessard, the founding president of the Tropical Fruit and Vegetable Society.

Lessard financed their dream with a one-year, interest-free loan. He kept his neighboring five acres and became a mentor and a friend. When Lessard died after a long battle with cancer in the summer of 2020, he left written in his trust that the young couple should have the first chance to buy the land, and the house in which he lived, at market price.

On that land, they started experimenting with tropical varieties of fruits they can grow in a slightly cooler sub-tropical climate. They focused on fruits that were not grown by the multinational growers, couldn’t be imported and fruits that wouldn’t stand up to the rigors of the global supply chain.

They chose fruits like atemoya or guanabana that can’t be picked too early, ripen quickly and bruise easily. They’re terrible choices for large growers, who have to ensure fruits can stand up to a week of travel. But they’re perfect for small, local farmers who can raise the best fruit for flavor — not hardiness — and ship them within a day or two. They could bypass the traditional supply chain.

“The goal is always to offer stuff that’s special,” Roatta said.

The couple built a cold storage, a refrigeration room and packing area out of recycled Chiquita banana shipping containers. They contracted with a local company to make the shipping boxes out of recycled paper, and Miami Fruit’s staff of about 20

handmakes the packing material out of biodegradable materials.

They worked with independent farmers, most of them in South Florida, encouraging them to grow rare tropical fruits Roatta and Schlegel proved could grow on their land.

Why grow common avocados paid at 20 cents a pound, Roatta told them, when you could grow something unique — like a variety of a longneck avocado or a rare purple sugar apple that caught the internet’s attention — and demand $5 a pound? Some turned over parts of their land to grow for Miami Fruit.

When critics ask why their fruit is so expensive — a box can cost over $100 — they stress paying farmers whatever they ask so they can continue growing quality, sustainable fruit at a fair wage. (They even made a TikTok about it.)

“He does such a service to Redland growers by buying that quality fruit and selling that quality fruit all over the United States,” said Chafin, who offers 75 varieties of bananas from his farm, including the Blue Java.

Their business was climbing every month — then COVID hit. While some businesses ground to a halt, theirs, which is all online, took off.

People suddenly at home with nowhere to go found the TikTok account Schlegel had started for Miami Fruit in October 2019. They found Schlegel, blonde and coquettish, creating short, fun videos that showed off the rare fruit as Rane harvested it. She often wore graphic T-shirts she had designed for the company, starring anthropomorphic fruit she’d drawn.

All her life she had said she wanted to be an artist, then a farmer, then an “artist farmer,” her father recalled.

“As it turns out, she did turn into a farming artist,” he said.

WETLANDS

From

to a 2015 rule that followed an extensive rulemaking process and a comprehensive peer-reviewed scientific assessment. The Trump administration then replaced the 2015 rule with a rule of its own that largely adopted the Scalia approach. The Biden administration has proposed a new rule that would deem waters of the United States present if either a significant nexus or continuous surface connection is present.

What’s at stake

The court’s ultimate ruling in Sackett could offer lower courts, regulatory agencies and landowners clear direction on the meaning of “waters of the United States.” And it will likely affect the government’s ability to protect the nation’s waters.

A broad interpretation

could include many agricultural ditches and canals, which might obligate some farmers and ranchers to apply for Section 404 permits. It could also ensure oversight of polluters who discharge pollutants upstream of federally protected waters.

The Sacketts assert that the permitting process imposes significant costs, delays and potential restrictions on property use. In response, the Biden administration contends that most landowners can proceed under general permits that impose relatively modest costs and burdens.

In my view, this court’s anti-regulatory bent — and the fact that no other justices joined Kennedy’s concurring Rapanos opinion — suggest that this case will produce a narrow reading of “waters of the United States.” Such an interpretation would undercut clean water protections across the country.

If the court requires a con-

tinuous surface connection, federal protection would no longer apply to many areas that critically affect the water quality of U.S. rivers, lakes and oceans — including seasonal streams and wetlands that are near or intermittently connected to larger water bodies. It might also mean that building a road, levee or other barrier separating a wetland from other nearby waters may be enough to remove an area from federal protection.

Congress could clarify what the Clean Water Act means by “waters of the United States,” but past efforts to legislate a definition have fizzled. And today’s closely divided Congress is unlikely to fare any better. The court’s ruling in Sackett could offer the final word on this issue for the foreseeable future.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license

NEST

From page A16

location this year, compared with 15 in 2021.

By the end of the afternoon, with the sun almost set, Moorhead-Wallace and Wallace left with multiple bags full of nest material to fill their structures. They also left some nests at the farm, and a neighbor across the street brought one home for her own yard.

A DIY nest

Handmade wooden pollinator habitats can fetch a high price online. But making a nest on your own takes just a few steps and some household materials following Moorhead-Wallace’s approach. Here’s what you’ll

need:

• Hollow and dry twigs, branches, stems and other plant materials

• Twine, yarn or a cardboard toilet paper roll

• A dry spot outside

After gathering the plant material, cut them down to between 6 and 8 inches, Moorhead-Wallace said. (Insects are likely to burrow in at most around 5 inches.)

Then gather them together with the twine, yarn or bunched in an old toilet paper roll.

The nest can be placed in a structure that you can decorate, such as a box made of wood or cardboard. Or, you can place the nest as is outside, ideally in a sunny and dry spot, such as under an overhang. You can also place it under a porch, or if you

don’t have a yard, on the edge of a fire escape, MoorheadWallace said.

Another way to make your garden friendly to pollinators is to plant native vegetation, which could bring some less common bees to your garden, Molumby said.

You can also leave the soil untilled and free of mulch or gravel for bees that nest underground, Minor said.

As a rule of thumb, if it looks like the opposite of a manicured lawn, pollinators will love it, Molumby said.

“Sometimes the stuff that encourages wildlife the most is stuff that gardeners consider to be kind of ungainly,” he said. “A pile of sticks, a bunch of plants that look like weeds — that’s actually the ideal habitat to encourage biodiversity.”