Beyond Organics®
Growing The Best Organics On The
Planet
This is a continuous harvest
operation. MOE Farms will grow approximately 75 varieties of vegetables and
produce, 35 varieties of herbs and specialty Ingredients. Prime+®
and Beyond Organics®
customers' will have access to
fresh, healthy and beyond organics standards quality vegetables, herbs and
specialty Ingredients on demand with in-season taste year-round.
New
technologies in combination with Proprietary methodologies enable MOE Farms to
provide in-season taste in private label, retail, bulk and hospitality
packaging 365 days a year. Add to the mix first mover advantage in a growing
and systemic supply demand imbalance and a one stop shop true farm-to-fork vertical
integration strategy and you get a high margin durable competitive edge.
Positioning MOE Farms to pass on to its retail and hospitality customers
measurable competitive advantages as well. This is what a real, cost efficient and
effective customer loyalty program looks and feels like.
Beyond
Organics is not some
clever marketing gimmick. It is an authentic restoration of the symbiotic
relationship between healthy soil and the vitality of our food, simply put, “life is in the soil, death in the dirt”. Integrity through
vertical integration, old-school Agra-science and intelligent technologies in
synchronicity with mother nature.
The
Certified Prime+™ and Beyond Organics® appellations
represent not just a superior customer value proposition, but
proprietary operational
knowledge and a set of standards that go well beyond
the clichéd ‘All
Natural/Organic’ moniker. Cutting through the clutter, confusion and
frustration premium product consumers’ experience in pursuit of their value,
quality, health and lifestyle goals.
This
is also, in part, the justification behind these customer groups motivation to
pay, 50-200% premiums for these product and service attributes. A ‘relatively
small premium’ paid in exchange for the assurance of healthy satisfaction with
the very limited time they have to spend with family and friends. This is what
a real, cost efficient and effective customer loyalty program looks & feels like. MOE Farms is a capacity driven operation,
NOT a marketing or sales-dependent model.
The Closed Loop Eco-Sphere Design: Soil, Water, Photosynthesis
& Climate Restores the Relationship Between our Food and Healthy Vitality.
Empowered Smart Soil™
Powered on-site by E Q
Power
Continuous Harvest Mgmt.
System
Proprietary Grow Master
Multiplier x 2.2
All produce waste
repurposed to E Q Power plant
CO2 from bio-gas production
recycled into Garden Ecosphere
Below Zero Emissions and
Carbon Negative Closed-Loop Eco-System
The Grow Master system is
a proprietary, continuous harvest design that enables MOE Farms to realize a 2.2 times per square foot productivity increase. In
combination with the Beyond Organics garden house design and Smart Soil
formulations, we anticipate a gain of 400 to 500% per square foot in annual
production capacity over conventional greenhouse operations.
It all Starts from the ground up with Smart Soil
We have been hearing a lot recently about a revolution in the way
we think about human health -- how it is inextricably linked to the health of
microbes in our gut, mouth, nasal passages, and other "habitats" in
and on us. With the release of the results of the five-year National Institutes
of Health's Human
Microbiome Project, we are told we should think of
ourselves as a "superorganism,"
a residence for microbes with whom we have coevolved, who perform critical
functions and provide services to us, and who outnumber our own human cells ten
to one.
For the first time, thanks to our ability to conduct highly
efficient and low cost genetic sequencing, we now have a map of the normal
microbial make-up of a healthy human, a collection of bacteria, fungi,
one-celled archaea, and viruses. Collectively they weigh about three pounds --
the same as our brain.
Now that we have this map of what microorganisms are vital to our
health, many believe that the future of healthcare will focus less on
traditional illnesses and more on treating disorders of the human microbiome by
introducing targeted microbial species (a "probiotic") and
therapeutic foods (a "prebiotic" -- food for microbes) into the gut
"community." Scientists in the Human Microbiome Project set as a core
outcome the development of "a twenty-first century
pharmacopoeia that includes members of the human microbiota and the chemical
messengers they produce."
The
single greatest leverage point for a sustainable and healthy future is arguably
immediately underfoot: a living soil, where we grow our food.
Mycorrhizae Hypha
Mycelium Network Increases Active Root Surface for Nutrient Acquisition up to 200
times! (Left and Right)
This is what the
Artificial Fertilizers and Biocides are Killing and why we have a crisis of
Obesity and Malnourishment in America.
There is another major revolution in human health also just
beginning based on an understanding of tiny organisms. It is driven by the same
technological advances and allows us to understand and restore our
collaborative relationship with microbiota not in the human gut but in another
dark place: the soil.
Just as we have unwittingly destroyed vital microbes in the human
gut through overuse of antibiotics and highly processed foods, we have
recklessly devastated soil microbiota essential to plant health through overuse
of certain chemical fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, failure to
add sufficient organic matter (upon which they feed), and heavy tillage. These
soil microorganisms -- particularly bacteria and fungi -- cycle nutrients
and water to plants, to our crops, the source of our food, and ultimately
our health.
Soil bacteria and fungi serve as the "stomachs" of
plants. They form symbiotic relationships with plant roots and
"digest" nutrients, providing nitrogen, phosphorus, and many other
nutrients in a form that plant cells can assimilate.
Reintroducing the right bacteria and fungi to facilitate the dark fermentation
process in depleted and sterile soils is analogous to eating yogurt (or taking
those targeted probiotic "drugs of the future") to
restore the right microbiota deep in your digestive tract.
The good news is that the same technological advances that allow
us to map the human microbiome now enable us to understand,
isolate, and reintroduce microbial species into the soil to repair the damage
and restore healthy microbial communities that sustain our crops and provide
nutritious food. It is now much easier for us to map genetic sequences of
soil microorganisms, understand what they actually do
and how to grow them, and reintroduce them back to the soil.
Since the 1970s, there have been soil microbes for sale in garden
shops, but most products were hit-or-miss in terms of actual effectiveness,
were expensive, and were largely limited to horticulture and hydroponics. New
genetic sequencing and production technologies have now come to a point
where we can effectively and at low cost identify and
grow key bacteria and the right species of fungi and apply them in large-scale
agriculture. We can produce these "bio
fertilizers" and add them to herbs, vegetables, or other crop seeds to
grow with and nourish the plant. We can sow the "seeds" of
microorganisms with our crop seeds and, as hundreds of independent studies
confirm, increase quality, yields and reduce the need for irrigation and
chemical fertilizers.
These soil microorganisms do much more than nourish plants. Just
as the microbes in the human body both aid digestion and maintain our immune
system, soil microorganisms both digest nutrients and protect plants against
pathogens and other threats.
For over four hundred million years, plants have been forming a
symbiotic association with fungi that colonize their roots, creating
mycorrhizae (my-cor-rhi-zee),
literally "fungus roots,"
which extend the reach of plant roots a hundred-fold.
These fungal filaments not only channel nutrients and water back
to the plant cells, they connect plants and actually enable them to communicate
with one another and set up defense systems. As a recent experiment in the U.K.
showed that mycorrhizal filaments act as a conduit for signaling between
plants, strengthening their natural defenses against pests.
When attacked by aphids, a broad bean plant transmitted a signal
through the mycorrhizal filaments to other bean plants nearby, acting as an
early warning system, enabling those plants to begin to produce their defensive
chemical that repels aphids and attracts wasps, a natural aphid predator.
Another study showed that diseased tomato plants also use the underground
network of mycorrhizal filaments to warn healthy tomato plants, which then
activate their defenses before being attacked themselves.
Thus, the microbial community in the soil, like in the human
biome, provides "invasion resistance" services to its symbiotic
partner. We disturb this association at our peril. As Michael Pollan recently noted, "Some researchers believe that
the alarming increase in autoimmune diseases in the West may owe to a
disruption in the ancient relationship between
our bodies and their 'old friends' -- the microbial symbionts with whom we
coevolved."
Not only do soil microorganisms nourish and protect plants, they
play a crucial role in providing many "ecosystem services" that are absolutely critical to human
survival. By many calculations, the living soil is the Earth's most valuable
ecosystem, providing ecological services such as climate regulation,
mitigation of drought and floods, soil erosion prevention, and water filtration, worth trillions of dollars each year. Those who study the
human microbiome have now begun to borrow the term "ecosystem
services" to describe critical functions played by microorganisms in
human health.
With regard to stabilizing our increasingly unruly climate, soil
microorganisms have been sequestering carbon for hundreds of millions of years
through the mycorrizal filaments, which are coated in
a sticky protein called "glomalin.". As much as 30 to 40 percent of
the glomalin molecule is carbon. Glomalin may account for as much as
one-third of the world's soil carbon -- and the soil contains more
carbon than all plants and the atmosphere combined.
We are now at a point where microbes that thrive
in healthy soil have been largely rendered inactive or
eliminated in most commercial agricultural lands;
they are unable to do what they have done for hundreds of millions of years, to
access, conserve, and cycle nutrients and water for plants and regulate the
climate. Half of the earth's habitable lands are farmed and we are losing soil
and organic matter at an alarming rate. Studies
show steady global soil depletion over time, and a serious stagnation in crop
yields.
So, not only have we hindered natural processes that nourish crops
and sequester carbon in cultivated land, but modern agriculture has become one
of the biggest causes of ecosystem instability. Our current global food system,
from clearing forests to growing food, to fertilizer manufacturing, to food
storage and packaging, is responsible for up to one-third of all
human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions. This is more than all the cars and
trucks in the transportation sector, which accounts for about one-fifth of
all greenhouse gases globally.
The single greatest leverage point for a sustainable and healthy
future for the seven billion people on the planet is thus arguably
immediately underfoot: the living soil, where we grow our food. Overall
soil ecology still holds many mysteries. What Leonardo Da
Vinci said five hundred years ago is probably still true today: "We know
more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil
underfoot." Though you never see them, ninety percent of all organisms
on the seven continents live underground.
In addition to bacteria and fungi, the soil is also filled with
protozoa, nematodes, mites, and microarthropods. There can be 10,000
to 50,000 species in less than a teaspoon of soil. In
that same teaspoon of soil, there are more microbes than there are people on
the earth. In a handful of healthy soil, there is more biodiversity in just
the bacterial community than you will find in all the animals of the Amazon
basin.
We hear about many endangered animals in the Amazon and now all
around the world. We all know about the chainsaw-wielding workers cutting trees
in the rainforest. But we hear relatively little about the destruction of the
habitat of kingdoms of life beyond plant and animal -- that of bacteria and
fungi.
We are making good progress in mapping the soil microbiome,
hopefully in time to identify those species vital to soil and plant health, so
they can be reintroduced as necessary. The Earth
Microbiome Project is analyzing and mapping microbial communities in soils
and waters across the globe. We do not want to find ourselves in the position
we have been with regard to many animal species that have gone extinct.
We have already decimated or eliminated known vital soil
microorganisms in certain soils and now need to reintroduce them. But it is very
different from an effort, let us say, to reintroduce the once massive herds of
buffalo to the American plains. We need these tiny partners to
help build a sustainable agricultural system, to stabilize our climate in an
era of increasing drought and severe weather, and to maintain our very health
and well-being.
The mass destruction of soil microorganisms began with
technological advances in the early twentieth century. The number of tractors
in the U.S. went from zero to three million by 1950. Farmers increased the size
of their fields and made cropping more specialized. Advances in the manufacture
of nitrogen fertilizers made them abundant and affordable. Ammonium nitrate
produced in WWII for munitions was then used for agriculture (we recently saw
the explosive power contained in one such fertilizer factory in the town of
West Texas).
The "Green Revolution" was driven by a fear of how to
feed massive population growth. It did produce more food,
but it was at the cost of the long-term health of the soil. And many
would argue that the food it did produce was
progressively less nutritious as the soil became depleted of organic matter,
minerals, and microorganisms. Evidenced by the AMAs recent findings that over 50% of all preventable
disease is nutritionally related, producing an epidemic of ‘Obese yet
Malnourished’ populations. Arden Andersen, a soil scientist and agricultural
consultant turned physician, has long argued that human health is directly
correlated to soil health. Perhaps the
single greatest point of leverage in terms of costs, quality and availability
of health care.
During this same period, we saw the rise of the "biological
agriculture" movement, largely in reaction to these technological
developments and the mechanization of agriculture. Scientific advances now
allow us to take soil organisms from an eco-farming niche to mainstream
agribusiness.
Many field tests, including a recent one at the University of
North Dakota, show that application of a commercial mycorrhizal fungi product
to the soybean root or seeds increased soybean yields from 5 to 15 percent. The
value of increased yields is three to five times greater than the cost of
application at current prices.
Studies show that there will also be major savings from reduced
need for chemical fertilizers and irrigation due to more efficient up-take of
minerals and water. This also means fewer toxins and pollutants, particularly
nitrogen fertilizers, leaching from agricultural lands into our public water
system and rivers, which has contributed to massive "dead zones" like
that in the Mississippi Delta.
For all these reasons, bio fertility products
are now a $500 million industry and growing fast. The major
agricultural chemical companies, like Bayer, BASF, Novozymes, Pioneer, and
Syngenta are now actively selling, acquiring or developing these products.
Reintroducing microorganisms into the soil, together with the
organic matter they feed upon, has the potential to be a key part of the
next big revolution in human health -- the development of sustainable
agriculture and food security based on restored soil health. Just as in the case of the human
microbiome, the soil drugs of the future are ones full of friendly germs, and
the foods they like to eat.
Mike Amaranthus
is the chief scientist at Mycorrhizal Applications, Inc.
Bruce J.
Allyn is the former director of the Harvard-Soviet Joint Study on Crisis
Prevention and the author of The Edge of Armageddon: Lessons from the Brink.
SOIL - The ‘Heart’ of the Planet
There is
a widely-used aphorism among soil scientists “never treat soils like dirt”,
which is in part a lament, that for many if not most people, soil is both a
mystery and something of little or no value. This is exceptionally worrying
because soil is probably the most valuable asset humanity controls, as our
entire civilization is dependent on it. Soil is often likened to the skin of
the planet, but this does soil a serious injustice as it has a far more
important and extensive role than skin does for a person. The soil is right at
the center, the ‘heart’, of the planet’s natural systems.
These
systems are categorized into different ‘spheres’ and include the atmosphere,
the hydrosphere (water bodies including rivers and other land based waters as
well as the oceans and seas) the geosphere (the rocky interior of the planet),
the biosphere (all living things) and the pedosphere (the soil). Matter, i.e.
the chemical elements, constantly cycle through these different spheres, for example
carbon, which is at the center of global warming, constantly flows between the
atmosphere, the biosphere and the soil (pedosphere) through the world’s two
most important physiochemical reactions; photosynthesis and respiration (Figure
1).
Soil is the
‘heart’ of the planet because it is the soil that is the interface for all the
other cycles. Soil is the main environment for the land biosphere, i.e. as a
rule of thumb, soil contains ten times more life, (measured by weight or
diversity), than all of the life growing above it. It is also literally and
metaphorically the root of all above-ground life as soil is half of the medium
in which plants grow, the other half being the atmosphere. Plants are the
bridge that links the soil and sky. Soil is also the interface between the
atmosphere and the geosphere and the filter through which the hydrosphere
flows.
It is
therefore impossible to overstate the importance of soil as it is the meeting
place of all the planetary spheres, and matter cycles. Soil is the foundation
of human civilization, as it was the activity of soil management, as part of
agriculture, that allowed early humans to move away from hunting and gathering
to form the first societies, and without productive soil civilization would
simply perish. Therefore, considering the absolute importance of soil to
humanity’s continued survival and its critical role in the planetary cycles,
including climate management, the treatment soil has received in an
agricultural context over the last 50 years, can be described as wholly
negligent, measurably damaging and potentially catastrophic.
Indeed, the
damage done to the world’s soils is probably the next most important threat to
maintaining society’s current levels of prosperity. The protection of soil is
the issue upon which organic agriculture was founded and it continues to be a
fundamental aspect of its management practice and a key factor in its
productive out-performance.
The
message is simple: soil is at the heart of planetary systems and its correct
management is vital in combating climate change as well as a wide range of
other ecological damage. The fundamental objective of organic agriculture is
optimal soil management; for industrial agriculture soil is just another
resource. It is conspicuously clear that it is ecological/organic management
that has the capability and praxis to maintain productive agriculture over an
indefinite time scale. The alternative ‘consumes’ soil, eroding the very basis
of its existence, meaning its time is limited, particularly in the face of
global climate change.
The
“narrowly-focused ‘seed and fertilizer’ revolution” [26] that proponents of
industrial scale agriculture continue to push is not only the wrong answer, it
is a key part of the problem. The increases in agricultural production over the
last half century are mainly due to the increased use of synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers, new crop cultivars (‘seeds’) that can make better use of the
synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and irrigation [24]. The farming system this
mixture promotes is monoculture, which is ecologically unstable and therefore
requires continual propping up by biocides, i.e. pesticides, insecticides,
herbicides and fungicides.
This
approach has undoubtedly resulted in considerable increases in crop yields over
this time [4]. It is however a classic example of flawed reductionism in that
the overwhelming aim has been yield increase regardless of the other effects
that using synthetic nitrogen, irrigation and biocides cause, such as:
· the
degradation, erosion and loss of soil,
· lower
nutrient contents of crops,
·
evolutionary biocide arms races against pests and diseases,
·
pollution of waterways and Ocean dead zones,
· farmer
indebtedness,
· loss of
biodiversity, and
·
biocides in food, etc., etc. [24].
The
narrow focus on yield from nitrogen and water ignores the consequent negative
downstream effects and also fails to consider the long term
sustainability of the whole system, i.e. no questions are asked about upstream
issues, e.g. where the nitrogen and water come from and how long they can
continue to be obtained.
If these
are not sufficient reasons to support investment in organic/ecological farming
systems over industrial, then further support is provided by industrial
agriculture’s significant contribution to climate change, a threat to
civilization of such enormity that business (and investment) as usual is
absolutely no longer an option.
Agriculture
directly contributes 13.5% of the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for
global warming and climate change (Figure 2 and Box 1). However, this analysis
excludes many of the up and down stream components of agriculture, e.g. the
production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, and when these are taken into
account using lifecycle assessment, agriculture contributes between 25-30% of
all GHG emissions [27].
The 13.5%
of direct net GHG emissions by agriculture is estimated at between 5.1 and 6.1
gigatons (Gt) CO2eq, in 2005 [6]. This is composed of 3.3 Gt CO2eq methane, 2.8
Gt CO2eq nitrous oxide and 0.04 Gt CO2. The CO2 figure is small because these
are net figures and while there are very large flows of carbon between
agriculture and the atmosphere they are mostly cyclical and in balance.
However, land clearance for agriculture and soil degradation which do result in
substantial CO2 and other GHG emissions are not counted under agricultural
emissions by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [6][8]. In
comparison agriculture is considered to be the main emitter of nitrous oxides
and methane, which is additionally problematic as these have approx. 300 and 20
times respectively the global warming potential of CO2 [8] see Box 1.
Nitrous oxide
emissions mostly originate from:
· high
levels of soluble forms of nitrogen in the soil mostly from synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers; and
· animal
housing and manure management.
Methane
emissions mostly originate from:
· the digestive
processes (enteric fermentation) of ruminants (e.g. cows, sheep, goats) (see
Box 2);
· anaerobic
rice paddies;
· manure
management; and
· compaction
of soils due to the use of heavy machinery.
The
burning of biomass, e.g. from slash-and-burn agriculture, and clearing land for
agriculture emits both methane and nitrous oxide [15][27].
Manure, 7%Soil emissions, 38% Enteric fermentation, 32% Biomass burning, 12%
Rice production, 11%
Climate Change
and Investment in Ecological Agriculture Outperformance and Opportunity
Soil
in Earth’s Critical Zone
Earth’s Critical Zone is the thin surface layer of our planet that extends from
the top of the vegetation to the bottom of drinking water aquifers. Soil is at
the heart of the Critical Zone and delivers many soil functions that provide
important environmental goods and services that are essential for humanity. We
cannot survive without soil.
Earth’s Critical Zone is the thin surface layer that provides most of our
life-sustaining resources. Essential soil functions within the Critical Zone
include:
- Biomass production
- Storage and transmission of water
- Storage of carbon and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Nutrient transformations
- Pollutant transformations
- Providing biological habitat
- Maintaining Earth’s gene pool
Soil
forms when rock breaks up and dissolves at Earth’s surface, from the action of
water with the help of plants and soil organisms. The mineral particles that
form, bind together with living organisms and decaying organic matter to create
larger aggregates of soil material. Fertile soil is rich in aggregates. As a
rough guide, fertile soil has more than 60% of its weight contained in the form
of aggregates that are greater than 0.25 mm in size.
Human Impact on Soil and the Critical Zone
The Critical Zone and soils are under huge pressure from growth in human
population and wealth. By 2050 it is projected that Earth’s population will
exceed 9.5 billion people with a predicted quadrupling in the global economy,
doubling in demand for food, doubling in demand for energy and biofuel crops
and more than 50% increase in demand for clean water
These pressures have already led to extensive soil degradation worldwide.
· Since the 19th century, around
60% of soil carbon in organic matter has been lost.
· In the past 25 years one-quarter of global land area shows
declining soil functions.
· Soil erosion from conventional agriculture is up to 100
times faster than soil formation.
· Draining peatlands worldwide causes peat loss 20 times
faster than the peat formation.
Flows and transformations of material, energy and genetic
biodiversity contribute to soil functions. The flows connect the different
parts of the Critical Zone (left) and transmit the impacts of human activity
through the Critical Zone. Good soil management reduces bad impacts.
Soil Threats
Increasing resource demands are causing soil degradation worldwide. Soil
functions are lost due to erosion when bare soil is swept from the land surface
by wind and water; desertification that occurs when loss of soil organic matter
is so severe that soils no longer retain nutrients and support vegetation;
degradation from pollution and from salts that are left behind when irrigation
water evaporates; compaction from machinery and tillage that destroys larger
soil aggregates; and sealing over by expansion of cities, buildings and roads.
The Critical Zone Chain of Impact
Soil is everything and soil health is the keystone of our
environmental ecosystems, from which their delicate balance evolves. Good soil
is teeming with organisms; it is literally alive. Poor soil doesn't have this,
or has it in such greatly reduced quantities that it is negligible, and the
richness of microbial life, just as with humans, has a lot to do with health
and fertility. We've been mistreating soils on an industrial level for many
decades now and the damage done is emerging in the catalogue of environmental
woes facing the Earth in the 21st century. Soil is under siege.
It's disappearing at an alarming rate. Topsoil is being
depleted faster than it can be replenished and something like 83 billion tons
of it is lost every year. On top of that over 70% of it is degraded. The term
'peak soil' has recently entered our lexicon. It's a quiet crisis brewing
across the globe.