You Can Now Track Carbon In an Ear of Corn From Farm to Table (bloomberg.com) 41
Companies will be soon able to track the carbon emissions from an ear of corn to a pork chop, allowing them to market products to environmentally conscious eaters. Bloomberg reports: Farmer's Business Network Inc. -- which has been likened to an "Amazon" for farmers -- has launched Gro Network, which will track and score the carbon intensity of grain. That will allow buyers to label their products to consumers as "green" and potentially get a higher price for farmers who use more sustainable practices. It's the latest effort to capitalize on growing demand for food that has a smaller environmental footprint. Pollutants can be found as early as in the fertilizers and other chemicals farmers use in their fields, which permeate the food supply system as grains move along to buyers like meat producers who feed those them to their livestock. Gro's technology offers a score that producers can show their customers, vouching for the products' environmental impact, opening a layer of transparency and creating a premium product in grocery stores' meat aisles.
Gro Network, which was birthed about two years ago as a research project within FBN, is working with major grain buyers like Unilever NV and biofuels producer Poet LLC, and connecting them directly to the growers of low-carbon corn. While Gro is one of the first to offer supply chain transparency, competition is likely to increase. FBN's online retail service was also met by competing services, such one from Nutrien Ltd. Along with access to product purchases, Nutrien offers advice on products that best suit the types of seeds farmers are planting. FBN says it aims to give farmers choice by providing the most information possible on pricing sustainability. And if that means competitors attracting customers away from them, so be it.
Gro Network, which was birthed about two years ago as a research project within FBN, is working with major grain buyers like Unilever NV and biofuels producer Poet LLC, and connecting them directly to the growers of low-carbon corn. While Gro is one of the first to offer supply chain transparency, competition is likely to increase. FBN's online retail service was also met by competing services, such one from Nutrien Ltd. Along with access to product purchases, Nutrien offers advice on products that best suit the types of seeds farmers are planting. FBN says it aims to give farmers choice by providing the most information possible on pricing sustainability. And if that means competitors attracting customers away from them, so be it.
What about past the table? (Score:2, Offtopic)
You wanna track that, too?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, no, because at that point it's not CO2 emissions that you need to track, but methane. You'll have to wait until release 2.0 for that feature.
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Release 2.0 would be when you light the fart on fire to get CO2 again?
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I always enjoy jokes like this, but on the serious side, perhaps it should be tracked.
As Joe Jenkins points out in the Humanure Handbook, first you flush a perfectly good carbon-rich nutrient resource down perfectly good potable water, thus rendering both unusable. Then you have to expend even more resources to clean the water up again, and somehow dispose of the residual, now environmentally-unfriendly waste.
(And no, I'm not following his program. Yet :-)
Re: (Score:2)
You know for a website that is centered around Science and Technology, there seems to be a lot of resistance towards science and technology.
Carbon Pollution is a problem.
Currently need to pollute carbon for our society to function. As we do not have an infrastructure built around effective carbon free production yet.
We can choose methods that use less carbon.
But how do we know which method uses more carbon or less? Well lets use Science and try to collect data. When you actually do science and collect data
Re: What about past the table? (Score:2)
Carbon pollution is a problem. But the people most adamant about getting rid of it don't want to solve the problem. Instead, they'd rather invest in Green tech and then impost regulations to make their investments pay off.
Frankly, if you don't support massive expansion of nuclear power, then you don't give a fuck about the environment or humanity. Green Peace is the worst thing to happen to the environment since the steam engine.
When almost everyone who says they care about the environment actively works ag
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So you are rejecting "Green Technology" as some sort of scheme to make money. Then Propose a different technology for the same reason?
We are not going to have nuclear powered cars, trucks, trains, or airplanes.
Most communities are not going to want a Nuclear Powered Plant in their back yard.
Most State governments do not have the funds and the ability to properly manage a safe nuclear power plant
As time goes decommission older plants are very expensive, and ends up with land that cannot be used.
While I belei
Footprint. Transparency. Sustainable. Birthed. (Score:2)
By their buzzwords ye shall know them.
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They are two types of Environmentalists.
1. Actual Scientist who study the environment and its effects.
2. Normal Citizens who are not scientists who try to do good for the environment but kling on buzzwords and what is trending for today.
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By their buzzwords, they are trying to get funding.
Know your buzzwords. They come in handy when trying to get funding for your next project.
What about the CO2 that has been released, (Score:3)
can it be apportioned to the emitters, so that I can request compensation for the damage I am subject to, although I have not benefited at all from their emissions?
What happened to "personal responsibility", why ain't we getting calls for that from the nations who profited most from this pollution at our expense?
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Can you prove specific monetary losses you have suffered due to CO2?
Do you live outside the US (the country that has profited the most by CO2 emissions?)
Just wondering - or are you just another city dwelling consumer who likes to complain?
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Of course I can - I own properties in a region which is turning fast from a very nice temperate into a subtropical semi-desert hell. The pine forests around them are mostly gone from diseases typical for much warmer areas.
Got any other "smart" questions?
Will this be like the Heart Foundation? (Score:1)
Reminds me of a website (Score:2)
Nobody cares about carbon and climate change is years from now while rent's due today. If you want folks to care you should focus on the health affects of breathing all that pollution.
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What website would be that? because I'm going to call a big fat BS on this - you just made it up, OR the site was a farce.
There is no way logistics tracking, even now, is ANYTHERE near that capable, even for the resellers, let along public.
Transparency or Marketing? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is only transparent if they disclose their methodology and make it readily avai
Carbon microaggressions (Score:2)
You forgot about environmental intersectionality and the injustice of carbon microaggressions.
Cool. (Score:2)
You Can Now Track Carbon In an Ear of Corn From Farm to Table
Wow, that's absolutely perfect. Now rank the corn by the most nutritious (best tasting?) for the cheapest price and then by age stability. You can hide that superfluous CO2 column. Thanks, we're done here.
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Precisely.
If those carbon-producing processes (I don't know for corn, but think of things like curation, maturation, fertilization, immunisation, preservation, packaging etc. for food in general) mean that the food isn't wasted, than that's a far greater win than something that's eco-friendly and just goes off within a day before you can use it. Because now you have to go buy another one.
I honestly couldn't care less what CO2 my food produced. I expect a regulation of the industry but as a consumer it's b
Why the american love of corn on the cob? (Score:2)
Its revolting stuff, like chewing on bubble wrap wrapped around a toilet roll with slightly less flavour.
so - you've been fed Field Corn? (Score:4, Informative)
There's "corn" and then there's "corn". Plenty of corn is grown for other purposes, like the corn used to feed pigs, and plenty of disreputable people sell some of that corn to ignorant purchasers, even often dishonestly calling it "sweet corn". Actual sweet corn, picked at the right time and then properly cooked, buttered, and salted is delicious. Assuming you're not one of those people who goes through life permanently unhappy and grumbling about everything, I shall assume you have simply never encountered the correct stuff properly prepared, which is not a surprise if you got it anywhere too far from a farm. I grew up on a farm but now live in a big urban area and find that most of the corn sold in the local grocery stores is awful, sold by people who do not know better to people who do not know better. Corn's hardly unique in that.
Re: so - you've been fed Field Corn? (Score:2)
I grew up outside Philadelphia and we used to get corn from southern New Jersey farm stands when on vacation. Best corn I've ever had (on the cob). I live in semi-rural Massachusetts now, and even the legitimate farm stand corn just doesn't compare. I'm sure there's other great corn out there, but Jersey corn is dear to my heart.
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Re: Why the american love of corn on the cob? (Score:2)
You ideally should eat the corn the same day it is picked. If you bought it in a supermarket then chances are it will be mediocre.
Also it's like eating bubblewrap covered in butter. So good.
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Corn on a cob, boiled or grilled, buttered and salted is a popular street food in Mexico and Russia.
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Mexico maybe, but I've been to russia and not once did I see anyone selling cobs on the street.
Tracking (Score:2)
You Can Now Track Carbon In an Ear of Corn From Farm to Table
And most of the corn carbon can be tracked easily onward from table to wherever!
Monsanto, Part Duex (Score:3)
Step 1: Put enormous pressure on the entire industry to produce "reduced-carbon" food.
Step 2: Turn that pressure, into law.
Step 3: Mega-Gro (similar to mega-corp) starts complaining that neighboring (read: competing) farms are "infecting" their crops with carbon.
Step 4: Put enormous legal pressure on the competition until they cave. Buy them all out.
Step 5: Profit, and sit back and proudly call yourself the fucking Amazon of the farming industry.
Greed will guarantee this bullshit will happen. Watch.
Re: Monsanto, Part Duex (Score:2)
Are you familiar with the concept of a type-o? How about dyslexia? Just because two letters are transposed doesn't mean the writer doesn't know how to spell the word.
Also, Part Deux is an English language reference that you seem to be unfamiliar with.
Re: The problem is that it should not just be "car (Score:2)
Not true. We replace resources over time. At one point in history, it would have appeared that the disappearance of coal would lead to civilization collapse. Now, we use oil and natural gas and could make do without coal if we needed to. Rare metals are the big concern nowadays, but each new generation of technology tends to introduce new materials. Lithium wasn't a hot commodity until last century, and now we can foresee a future where our lithium needs start to shrink as new technologies have come along.
Re: Plant-based meals will win (Score:2)
Meat doesn't have to be carbon intensive. It just usually is because we farm it in places with no water.
Properly raised cattle are carbon negative. Search for "regenerative agriculture". There's at least one good TED talk on this topic as well, related to reversing desertification.
Headline and Summary Don't Agree (Score:2)
Headline: You Can Now Track Carbon In an Ear of Corn From Farm to Table
Summary: Companies will be soon able to track the carbon emissions from an ear of corn
So, no, I (the reader) won't gain the ability to track anything and that ability is not available now. Moreover, the summary further explains that the companies wouldn't be tracking the carbon actually in the corn, but the effective carbon footprint (CO2 and CO2e) from producing and shipping the corn.
Therefore, the headline is not related to the content
I call bullshit (Score:2)
I highly doubt that every single cob gets tracked. I mean, how would you? Instead what you get is total COx production divided by weight of the product. This is about as likely or sensible as tracking your own carbon footprint by dividing the gas consumption of the country by the number of people living in it.
But I'm quite convinced that this isn't even remotely the goal. The goal is "awareness". And that's bullshit. Either people already care about their carbon footprint. Then they most likely already know