Community, the “350 Campaign”, and the “3/50 Project”

Yesterday afternoon, many movers and shakers in southwest Virginia, had the privilege of hearing author, activist, Sunday school teacher, and environmentalist, Bill McKibben share some of his thoughts on climate change, local economies, and social interactions – all three of which pertain to local and sustainable food systems and will subsequently be addressed.  McKibben was invited to Blacksburg by Andy Morikawa and the Community Foundation of the New River Valley (CFNRV) to be the keynote address for their annual meeting.

Tim LaSalle  and Paul Hepperly at the Rodale Institute showed in a recent study how organic agriculture can contribute in the struggle to halt climate change.  Studies like this likely played a role in the recent announcement from the National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to set aside $50 million for its new 2009 Organic Initiative through its Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is on top of issues like this, so I highly recommend utilizing the link provided as a resource.

Agricultural economist, Ken Meter has shown the economic benefits of keeping food dollars in the local economy. Below is an excerpt taken from the final report of the Virginia Food Security Summit held in May 2007:

Kenneth Meter, President of the Crossroads Resource Center, analyzed Virginia’s “economic leakage” – i.e.,revenues lost due to citizen purchase of non-Virginia foods and food products. He found that of the $14.8 billionspent in Virginia on food ($8.1 billion to eat at home, and another $6.7 billion to eat out), with $8.9 billion or 60%

spent on food coming from outside Virginia. He noted that in 2002, 2,513 farms sold $16.8 million worth of food directly to the consumer, representing only .7% of overall food sales, but nevertheless a 52% increase from 1997. He then looked at the overall balance of Virginia’s farm cash receipts less farm expenditures, finding that Virginia

farms had experienced an $800 million loss over seven years, through 2003. His analysis shows that Virginia farmers produce $2.8 billion of commodities per year, yet spend $2.9 billion to raise them, losing $110 million in production costs. As testimony to this fact, 54% of Virginia farms reported a loss in 2002. Mr. Meter added the

values of net losses in the state: a loss of $110 million raising commodities, $8.9 billion buying food brought in from outside the state, and $1 billion for farm inputs purchased from outside the state, totaling a net loss of $10 billion per year, or three times the value of all commodities raised. He suggested that, like other states that are struggling to find ways to support family farms, if Virginia were able to increase its purchase of Virginia farm products by only 15%, Virginia farm would realize an additional $2.2 billion of new income.

Sustainable food/food justice non-profits like Growing Power, People’s Grocery, and the Heifer Project  have made social interaction and community a central piece to their models. A couple of years back, Virginia’s own,  Tom Davenport created the farmer/eater online networking tool,  FarmFoody in an effort to bring together communities, utilizing the now-ubiquitous, internet.

Flaccavento  (last year’s keynote for the CFNRV annual meeting) and Appalachian Sustainable Development  (ASD) are doing real work (as opposed to incessant “discussion”) that addresses all of the aforementioned issues right in our own backyard here in southwest Virginia.  ASD is utilizing our region’s natural resources in an ecologically sound manner to build vibrant, locally-owned economies that strive for social justice.  

Towards the end of his talk, McKibben discussed his “350 Campaign” to take action on climate change.  I’d also like to draw attention to the “3/50 Project” which deals with local economies and building community.  I won’t dive into the details of either in this post, but that’s why the hyperlinks are included!  

McKibben said something toward the end that caught my ear and hasn’t left since – “Getting your own place in order is not sufficient.” As in, the work does not cease when we get our own back porch cleaned up.  As in, the idea of every man/woman for his/herself will not suffice in our current economic, ecological, and social circumstances. 

“And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” – John F. Kennedy

Pressing the “reset” button on our food system

Below this post are two quotes from two of our forefathers that speak volumes about the value we once placed on agriculture.  Of course, this was a much different time in our nation and planet’s history but they do beg some critical thinking. 

 As a TIME magazine cover story recently suggested, perhaps it may be time for a “Reset” in American culture.  Our economy relies on seemingly incessant expansion – or what Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson would refer to as an “extractive economy”.  How do we restore our economy, ensure jobs, nourish eaters (this includes humans, plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, insects) all while attempting to avoid the excess and extraction that has landed us in our current predicament?

Following the lead of Woody Tasch and his concept of “Slow Money” , I would argue that we must shift our focus and begin investing as if “food, farms, and fertility mattered”.  Of course, I am no economist and cannot provide specific examples but the goal of this post is to suggest that there may be a better way.  Many minds that are much brighter, more experienced, and articulate than myself have been working tirelessly to pave the path for a new train of thought here in the 21^st century.  We must restore the dignity to agriculture and one way to begin this process is investment in a food system that is socially, economically, and ecologically sound. 

How do you invest? The first step would be to ask questions about your food – where did it come from? How did it get here? How was it produced? As you ask these questions, think about what you are okay with and what you are not okay with. If you aren’t okay with it, ask yourself why and then start using your own two hands to make it better (of course only if you want to).

“Finally, there seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war as the Romans did in plundering their conquered neighbours. This is robbery. The second by commerce which is generally cheating. The third is by agriculture, the only honest way; wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life, and virtuous industry.”

- Benjamin Franklin, Positions to be Examined, April 4, 1769

 

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it’s liberty and interests by the most lasting bands”

 

- Thomas Jefferson

 

Michael Pollan: “Don’t buy any food you’ve seen advertised”

In a recent interview with Amy Goodman on the nationally syndicated program, Democracy Now!, Michael Pollan puts it quite bluntly: “The real food is not being advertised. And that’s really all you need to know.”

Wow. That’s intense. As a Registered Dietitian , I must say that I fully agree with that bold statement. If you’d like to know why myself and a growing number of progressive RD’s resonate with that sentiment, pick up a copy of In Defense of Food (Michael Pollan, 2007) at the public library.

If you’d like to listen to the interview in its entirety or read the manuscript, please click here.

Will Allen’s “Good Food Manifesto for America”

 

A Good Food Manifesto for America
By Will Allen
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
I am a farmer. While I find that this has come to mean many other things to other people – that I have become also a trainer and teacher, and to some a sort of food philosopher – I do like nothing better than to get my hands into good rich soil and sow the seeds of hope.

So, spring always enlivens me and gives me the energy to make haste, to feel confidence, to take full advantage of another all-too-short Wisconsin summer.

This spring, however, much more so than in past springs, I feel my hope and confidence mixed with a sense of greater urgency. This spring, I know that my work will be all the more important, for the simple but profound reason that more people are hungry.

For years I have argued that our food system is broken, and I have tried to teach what I believe must be done to fix it. This year, and last, we have begun seeing the unfortunate results of systemic breakdown. We have seen it in higher prices for those who can less afford to pay, in lines at local food pantries, churches and missions, and in the anxious eyes of people who have suddenly become unemployed. We have seen it, too, in nationwide outbreaks of food-borne illness in products as unlikely as spinach and peanuts.

Severe economic recession certainly has not helped matters, but the current economy is not alone to blame. This situation has been spinning toward this day for decades. And while many of my acquaintances tend to point the finger at the big agro-chemical conglomerates as villains, the fault really is with all of us who casually, willingly, even happily surrendered our rights to safe, wholesome, affordable and plentiful food in exchange for over-processed and pre-packaged convenience.

Over the past century, we allowed our agriculture to become more and more industrialized, more and more reliant on unsustainable practices, and much more distant from the source to the consumer. We have allowed corn and soybeans, grown on the finest farmland in the world, to become industrial commodities rather than foodstuffs. We have encouraged a system by which most of the green vegetables we eat come from a few hundred square miles of irrigated semi-desert in California.

When fuel prices skyrocket, as they did last year, things go awry. When a bubble like ethanol builds and then bursts, things go haywire. When drought strikes that valley in California, as is happening right now, things start to topple. And when the whole economy shatters, the security of a nation’s food supply teeters on the brink of failure.

To many people, this might sound a bit hysterical. There is still food in the suburban supermarket aisles, yes. The shelves are not empty; there are no bread lines. We haven’t read of any number of Americans actually starving to death.

No, and were any of those things to happen, you can rest assured that there would be swift and vigorous action. What is happening is that many vulnerable people, especially in the large cities where most of us live, in vast urban tracts where there are in fact no supermarkets, are being forced to buy cheaper and lower-quality foods, to forgo fresh fruits and vegetables, or are relying on food programs – including our children’s school food programs – that by necessity are obliged to distribute any kind of food they can afford, good for you or not. And this is coming to haunt us in health care and social costs. No, we are not suddenly starving to death; we are slowly but surely malnourishing ourselves to death. And this fate is falling ever more heavily on those who were already stressed: the poor. Yet there is little action.

Many astute and well-informed people beside myself, most notably Michael Pollan, in a highly persuasive treatise last fall in the New York Times, have issued these same warnings and laid out the case for reform of our national food policy. I need not go on repeating what Pollan and others have already said so well, and I do not wish merely to add my voice to a chorus.

I am writing to demand action.

It is time and past time for this nation, this government, to react to the dangers inherent in its flawed farm and food policies and to reverse course from subsidizing wealth to subsidizing health.

We have to stop paying the largest farm subsidies to large growers of unsustainable and inedible crops like cotton. We have to stop paying huge subsidies to Big Corn, Big Soy and Big Chem to use prime farmland to grow fuel, plastics and fructose. We have to stop using federal and state agencies and institutions as taxpayer-funded research arms for the very practices that got us into this mess.

We have to start subsidizing health and well-being by rewarding sustainable practices in agriculture and assuring a safe, adequate and wholesome food supply to all our citizens. And we need to start this reform process now, as part of the national stimulus toward economic recovery.

In my organization, Growing Power Inc. of Milwaukee, we have always before tried to be as self-sustaining as possible and to rely on the market for our success. Typically, I would not want to lean on government support, because part of the lesson we teach is to be self-reliant.

But these are not typical times, as we are now all too well aware.

As soon as it became clear that Congress would pass the National Recovery Act, I and members of my staff brainstormed ideas for a meaningful stimulus package aimed at creating green jobs, shoring up the security of our urban food systems, and promoting sound food policies of national scope. The outcome needed to be both “shovel-ready” for immediate impact and sustainable for future growth.

We produced a proposal for the creation of a public-private enabling institution called the Centers for Urban Agriculture. It would incorporate a national training and outreach center, a large working urban farmstead, a research and development center, a policy institute, and a state-of-the-future urban agriculture demonstration center into which all of these elements would be combined in a functioning community food system scaled to the needs of a large city.

We proposed that this working institution – not a “think tank” but a “do tank” – be based in Milwaukee, where Growing Power has already created an operating model on just two acres. But ultimately, satellite centers would become established in urban areas across the nation. Each would be the hub of a local or regional farm-to-market community food system that would provide sustainable jobs, job training, food production and food distribution to those most in need of nutritional support and security.

This proposal was forwarded in February to our highest officials at the city, state and federal level, and it was greeted with considerable approval. Unfortunately, however, it soon became clear that the way Congress had structured the stimulus package, with funds earmarked for only particular sectors of the economy, chiefly infrastructure, afforded neither our Congressional representatives nor our local leaders with the discretion to direct any significant funds to this innovative plan. It simply had not occurred to anyone that immediate and lasting job creation was plausible in a field such as community-based agriculture.

I am asking Congress today to rectify that oversight, whether by modifying the current guidelines of the Recovery Act or by designating new and dedicated funds to the development of community food systems through the creation of this national Centers for Urban Agriculture.

Our proposal budgeted the initial creation of this CUA at a minimum of $63 million over two years – a droplet compared to the billions being invested in other programs both in the stimulus plan and from year-to-year in the federal budget.

Consider that the government will fund the Centers for Disease Control at about $8.8 billion this year, and that is above the hundreds of millions more in research grants to other bio-medical institutions, public and private. This is money well spent for important work to ensure Americans the best knowledge in protecting health by fighting disease; but surely by now we ought to recognize that the best offense against many diseases is the defense provided by a healthy and adequate diet. Yet barely a pittance of CDC money goes for any kind of preventive care research.

In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security approved spending $450 million for a new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility at Kansas State University, in addition to the existing Biosecurity Research Institute already there. Again, money well spent to protect our food supply from the potential of a terrorist attack. But note that these hundreds of millions are being spent to protect us from a threat that may never materialize, while we seem to trivialize the very real and material threat that is upon us right now: the threat of malnourishment and undernourishment of very significant number of our citizens.

Government programs under the overwhelmed and overburdened departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services do their best to serve their many masters, but in the end, government farm and food policies are most often at odds between the needs of the young, the old, the sick and the poor versus the wants of the super-industry that agriculture has become.

By and large, the government’s funding of nutritional health comes down to spending millions on studies to tell us what we ought to eat without in any way guaranteeing that many people will be able to find or afford the foods they recommend. For instance, food stamps ensure only that poor people can buy food; they cannot ensure that, in the food deserts that America’s inner cities have become, there will be any good food to buy.

We need a national nutrition plan that is not just another entitlement, that is not a matter of shipping surplus calories to schools, senior centers, and veterans’ homes. We need a plan that encourages a return to the best practices of both farming and marketing, that rewards the grower who protects the environment and his customers by nourishing his soil with compost instead of chemicals and who ships his goods the shortest distance, not the longest.

If the main purpose of government is to provide for the common security of its citizens, surely ensuring the security of their food system must be among its paramount duties. And if among our rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we are denied all those rights if our cities become prisons of poverty and malnutrition.

As an African-American farmer, I am calling on the first African-American president of the United States to lead us quickly away from this deepening crisis. Demand, President Obama, that Congress and your own Administration begin without delay the process of reforming our farm and food policies. Start now by correcting the omission in your economic stimulus and recovery act that prevented significant spending on creating new and sustainable jobs for the poor in our urban centers as well as rural farm communities.

It will be an irony, certainly, but a sweet one, if millions of African-Americans whose grandparents left the farms of the South for the factories of the North, only to see those factories close, should now find fulfillment in learning once again to live close to the soil and to the food it gives to all of us.

I would hope that we can move along a continuum to make sure that all of citizens have access to the same fresh, safe, affordable good food regardless of their cultural, social or economic situation.

This was taken with permission from Will Allen’s blog: http://growingpower.wordpress.com/ . Will Allen is a 2008 MacArthur Genius Fellow and CEO of the non-profit, Growing Power. Please click here for a link to the PDF format of the “Good Food Manifesto for America”

Join the VT Sustainable Food Corps for its 1st annual Film Showing/Panel – May 6th, 2009

Support your local community and join the Virginia Tech Sustainable Food Corps for “Wonderful 1st Wednesdays” as they present a free film showing of Chris Bedford’s “The Organic Opportunity”. 

 

The 25 minute film will be followed by a panel to answer your questions concerning sustainable foods and how you can help. The festival, sponsored by the Downtown Merchants of Blacksburg, will be held at the Lyric Theater on Wednesday, May 6th from 5:00pm-6:30pm. Best of all, it’s FREE! : )

 

Afterwards, walk down to the Blacksburg Farmer’s Market and try out some Dogtown Pizza and get your fill on local produce.

 

The diverse panel will feature:

• Susan Clark, Director for the Didactic Program in Dietetics at Virginia Tech
• Jerry Moles, Grayson Landcare
• Christy Gabbard from the Conservation Management Institute
• Elena Dulys-Nusbaum, member of the Environmental Coalition and VT Sustainable Food Corps

 

Come with questions for the panel and don’t forget to check out the Blacksburg Farmers Market after the film, located on the corner of Roanoke St.and Draper Rd!

 

*Many thanks to Emily Ferk and Kati Span for putting this event together!

**Equal thanks goes out to the Blacksburg Downtown Merchants who have been amazing partners for the Virginia Tech Sustainable Food Corps.

 

If you’d like to know more about the Virginia Tech Sustainable Food Corps, please visit: www.vtsustainablefoodcorps.wordpress.com or e-mail vtsustainablefoodcorps@gmail.com

 

They VT Sustainable Food Corps is sponsored by the Virginia Tech Center for Student Engagement and Community Partnership and are also a member of the Campus Coalition for Sustainability.

Swine Flu and Smithfield Pork link – Swine Flu, Part 1

Agribusiness is scheming and strategizing how to get out of their latest conundrum – The so-called, “Swine Flu”.  This will be the first of multiple posts regarding this fascinating topic and what it means for the food system, and of course – eaters. 

The link between the Swine Flu and Smithfield Pork was first broken by Tom Philpott of The Grist.  Check out this link for his initial reporting: http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-25-swine-flu-smithfield/

Is there an agribusiness influence at land-grant institutions?

South Dakota State University is a land grant university. The president, David Chicoine, has now been named to the board of Monsanto….at $195,000/yr.  One commentator sees this as the run up to genetically engineered wheat.

Currently, Monsanto owns or has influenced 99% of the soy crop in the United States.  Is this a good business model or a seed monopoly?

Monsanto Adds David L. Chicoine to Board of Directors

For the link to the press-release: http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=703

Monsanto Adds David L. Chicoine to Board of Directors

ST. LOUIS, April 15, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Monsanto Company announced today the appointment of David L. Chicoine, Ph.D., to the company’s Board of Directors. Dr. Chicoine is currently president of South Dakota State University (SDSU) in Brookings, South Dakota. Dr. Chicoine is also a nationally recognized economist, specializing in public finance, taxation and rural economies.

 

Prior to joining SDSU in 2007, Dr. Chicoine held various positions of increasing responsibility with the University of Illinois, most recently as Vice President for Technology and Economic Development. His higher education administrative experience at the University of Illinois also includes service as Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Dean of the College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the Urbana-Champaign campus.

 

“On behalf of Monsanto, I am pleased to announce the appointment of David Chicoine as an independent director to our Board,” said Hugh Grant, Chairman of the Board, Monsanto Company. “David has more than 30 years experience in higher education and is a recognized agricultural economist. We believe his background and insight will serve Monsanto shareowners well by bringing another valuable perspective to our business and our Board.”

 

Dr. Chicoine’s appointment is effective immediately, and he will stand for election to the Board at the 2010 annual meeting of shareowners. Dr. Chicoine will serve on the following board committees: Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility, and Science and Technology.

 

The addition of Dr. Chicoine to Monsanto’s board brings the number of directors to 11, with 10 independent directors. Additional information on Dr. Chicoine can be accessed at SDSU’s website at http://www3.sdstate.edu/SDSU/PresidentsWelcome.cfm. Additional information on Monsanto’s Board of Directors can be accessed at www.monsanto.com/directors.

 

 

About Monsanto Company

Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products that improve farm productivity and food quality. Monsanto remains focused on enabling both small-holder and large- scale farmers to produce more from their land while conserving more of our world’s natural resources such as water and energy. To learn more about our business and our commitments, please visit: http://www.monsanto.com.

CONTACT: Media: Danielle Stuart (314-694-2478)

SOURCE: Monsanto Company

Web site: http://www.monsanto.com/

Tonight’s Menu for Farmer’s Panel

Below is the menu that will be served in conjunction with the farmer’s panel tonight. We hope that you’re able to make it out tonight (5:30pm, Owens Food Court) and have some of the local and sustainably produced grub that comes from our good friends around southwest Virginia. 

Along the way, we hope to provide education on the “true cost of food”.

*Please note that the word “local” inherently implies transparency.  The farms listed below allow scheduled farm visits so you can see for yourself how they work with nature.  Transparency is essential. After all, you’re paying for and eating the food, right?

 

 

• Grayson All Natural Carved Roast Beef (Grayson Natural Foods, Grayson County, VA)
• Organic Smashed Potatoes
• Organic Marinated Roasted Mushrooms
• Local and organic Field Greens Salad (Full Circle Organic Farm and Moon Indigo Farm, Floyd County, VA)
• Local Homemade Rolls (made with wheat processed at Ashland Milling Co., Ashland, VA)
• Cheesecake (Blue Ridge Baby Cheesecakes, Roanoke County, VA)

Food Sustainability Day is Monday, April 20th ALL DAY (see below for events)

Monday, April 20, 2009

Farms & Fields Project Grand Opening*

Owens Food Court, 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

Join us as we celebrate the opening of Virginia Tech’s first sustainable, local and organic foods venue. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres created by our chefs using local and organic products and enter to win a Sustainable Foods Starter Kit filled with seeds, Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, and other items to help you start growing the most local food of all-from your own garden.

Catawba LandCare with Christy Gabbard

Squires Brush Mountain A, 1:00 p.m.

Landcare is a cooperative, sustainable approach to land management, which produces a broad range of economic, social, and environmental benefits (the triple bottom-line) desired by landowners and their partners. Come hear how the people at Catawba LandCare introduced the concept along the length and breadth of the Catawba Creek and North Fork watersheds and their tributaries, and how you can get involved and educated.

Shaklee and the Real Dirt on Clean by Rob Jacks

Squires Brush Mountain A, 2:30 p.m.

Rob Jacks from Seek Education, Explore, DiScover (SEEDS) will talk about Shaklee, the world’s first climate-neutral certified company, some of their revolutionary new products, and how SEEDS has begun incorporating Shaklee as a fundraising tool for their organization. Also learn about the “Real Dirt” on cleaning products and their eco-friendly alternatives.

Food Sustainability Booth

Dietrick Patio, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Learn all about local and sustainable food systems! Information and materials will be provided by organizations that aim to educate the public on how and why to integrate sustainability in to daily meal choices.

Eat and Greet with Andy Sarjahani, Virginia Tech Dining Services Sustainability Coordinator

Squires Brush Mountain A, 4:00 p.m.

Andy Sarjahani will address the most common questions students ask about our dining halls, like, What’s the deal with all the foam containers? How can we get more local foods on campus? What are we already doing?, and What are the next steps for greening our dining halls? Bring your own questions and come get informed!

Farms & Fields Grand Opening and Local Growers Panel*

Owens Food Court – Dinner: 5:30 p.m., Panel: 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Have dinner at Virginia Tech’s first local and organic foods venue in Owens Food Court and meet the local growers that Tech works with to make this project a success. They will discuss the obstacles of bringing local foods to big campuses like Virginia Tech’s from a grower’s perspective.

Local Growers Panel:

• Larry and Debby Bright, The Bright Farm
• Brett and Johanna Nichols, Five Penny Farm
• Gary Mitchell, Grayson Natural Foods, LLC
• Tenley Weaver and Dennis Dove, Full Circle Organic Farm/Good Food, Good People Co-Op

Moderator: Andy Sarjahani, Sustainability Coordinator, Virginia Tech Housing and Dining Services

For more information, please visit: http://www.studentprograms.vt.edu/green/earthweek.php

NY Times: Is a Food Revolution Now in Season?

Here is the link to the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/business/22food.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Below are a few excerpts from this 3/21/09 piece by Andy Martin:

After being largely ignored for years by Washington, advocates of organic and locally grown food have found a receptive ear in the White House, which has vowed to encourage a more nutritious and sustainable food supply…

 

AT the heart of the sustainable-food movement is a belief that America has become efficient at producing cheap, abundant food that profits corporations and agribusiness, but is unhealthy and bad for the environment.

The federal government is culpable, the activists say, because it pays farmers billions in subsidies each year for growing grains and soybeans. A result is an abundance of corn and soybeans that provide cheap feed for livestock and inexpensive food ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup.

They argue that farm policy — and federal dollars — should instead encourage farmers to grow more diverse crops, reward conservation practices and promote local food networks that rely less on fossil fuels for such things as fertilizer and transportation.

Last year, mandatory spending on farm subsidies was $7.5 billion, compared with $15 million for programs for organic and local foods, according to the House Appropriations Committee.

But advocates of conventional agriculture argue that organic farming simply can’t provide enough food because the yields tend to be lower than those for crops grown with chemical fertilizer.