Meating of the minds: Are food-focused hackathons a sign of what's to come for Silicon Valley

On a Saturday morning in late June – not a busy time on most university campuses – Stanford's Institute of Design, in Palo Alto California was buzzing with energy. Nearly 300 people had gathered there for Hack//Meat Silicon Valley. The two-day event used the intensive codefest, or "hackathon", model made popular by the software industry to bring together a range of stakeholders looking to improve the meat we eat.

Participants were given a series of real-world challenges to choose from, then broke into teams to hear from mentors in the field, and worked together over the course of 48 hours to devise and present their own entrepreneurial solutions. A panel of judges chose winners, who were given support to take their ideas to the next stage of development.

This was the second in a series of Hack//Meat events, started by Danielle Gould, whose organisation Food + Tech Connect is examining ways that technology can impact the environment, the economy and public health through food.

Gould and her collaborators chose to start with meat, because, "it's at the centre of the plate. And it's controversial and polarising." Read more at the Guardian Sustainable Business.

Photo credit: Mona T. Brooks for Food+Tech Connect (See more pics of the event here.)

You are what your meat eats: Farmers grow their own feed

Peanuts, flax, sprouts and avocados: It's not the menu at a health food deli, but the menu inside some barns. What's more, many farmers experimenting with these gourmet feeds are growing the ingredients themselves.

Take Russ Kremer, the Missouri pig farmer whose operation served as the inspiration for the 2011 Chipotle ad featuring Willy Nelson. Kremer hasn't bought commercial animal feed in 30 years. Instead, he grazes his hogs in a pasture, and grows (or buys from neighbors) grains and legumes to supplement their nutrition.

Kremer and some of the other farmers developing specialty feed say they are willing to shoulder the extra cost and time to produce it because they're turned off by conventional feed mixes. The conventional mixes are what most of the hogs in the U.S. consume, and can include commodity corn and soybeans, blood protein, animal waste and rendered fats, according to Kremer.

Kremer also runs a co-op where farmers can pool resources to mill their own feed. "We opt for grains like barley and oats as often as possible, because most corn and soy is now [genetically modified]," he says. Read more on the NPR food blog.

Note: Kremer was also the recipient of this year's NRDC Growing Green award (see video below).

100% grassfed milk

Dairy cows in Ferndale, California, home to three dairy operations that have gone completely grain-free. 

Nestled near the southern end of California’s Humboldt County, Ferndale, California, is known for its grass—but not the kind that might immediately come to mind. The valley surrounding Ferndale is carpeted in pastureland, and dairy farmers have been tending to the grass there, and the cows that graze in it, day in and day out for generations.

So when Organic Valley—the large Wisconsin-based dairy cooperative—decided to start selling an all-grassfed milk, it’s no surprise they looked to the farmers of Ferndale. With grazing potential almost all-year long, most dairy cows in the area already eat much more of this green living food than average. But now their grassfed milk—and other milk like it—will have the chance to stand out to consumers.

 Read more on TakePart.com.

What the "food-tech revolution" is missing: Good jobs

Can venture-capital-backed food startups (based in Silicon Valley, where exponential growth seems mandatory) influence the food labor conversation?

 I'd been thinking about this question for a while, and I got some interesting answers from the new online marketplace, Good Eggs. Read more on TakePart.

Farms, food, and fracking in California

Photo by RL Miller. 

Here's a great write-up from CUESA on the panel I moderated about farming and fracking in California last month.

And here's the story I wrote recently for TakePart on the topic: Can Fracking and Farming Mix in America’s Biggest Ag State?

Do the small-farm hustle

For small farmers, making a living from selling food is getting harder and harder. Time to hustle.

Karen and Dennis Ramseyer started growing and selling pumpkins on their 5th generation Ohio potato farm in 2000. One thing led to another and soon they created corn mazes, hay rides, and began touring groups of school kids around the farm. “One year,” recalls Karen Ramseyer, “we refurbished a combine and turned it into a slide.” Now, they add a new attraction every year, and employ a staff of 30 people every fall.  Read more on Modern Farmer.