In March 2020 in San Diego, a small group of farmers decided to activate the “hub” concept and launched Foodshed Small Farm Distro and Resource Hub. Foodshed works directly with farmers, eaters, and entrepreneurs to cultivate an equitable food system in San Diego while addressing the challenges posed by the climate crisis.
Foodshed believes soil health is the key to a thriving local food system, it is the infrastructure from which a myriad of co-benefits can be cultivated. Recognizing healthy soil as vital public infrastructure they’ve uncovered an urgent need to measure the impact of carbon farming for the sake of our own stewardship as well as to communicate effectively with local policymakers. These parallel needs have encouraged them to develop data collection and assessment tools that really work for farmers. They are currently using these tools to gather baseline data and are ready to scale up their use.
For their seasonal soil health assessments, in addition to some of the quantified results from traditional micro and macronutrients soil lab tests, Foodshed integrated Solvita (Basal Soil Respiration) test for measuring soil respiration in fresh soil samples and microBIOMETER®, as microbes are excellent predictors of soil health. microBIOMETER®, a professional lab-grade soil test kit for determination of soil microbial biomass and fungal to bacterial ratio, is an invaluable tool to help them understand their soil’s biology and it’s capacity to integrate nutrients, hold water, increase biodiversity, and strengthen the microbial community.
Using the Soil Mentor Regen Platform as their data management app, they can analyze changes in different soil health indicators from year to year, compare results from farm to farm and in their bioregion. COMET Planner is the evaluation tool that allows them to calculate and validate carbon sequestration potential occurring on their farms by providing estimates of the net greenhouse gas reductions for specific agricultural management conservation practices.
They are dedicated to investing in building soil biology to increase our resilience. Their program demonstrates how we can leverage carbon farming investments to create real equity, and highlights the importance of accessible and affordable tools like the microBIOMETER® to their success in analyzing soil and compost across our farms’ network in an efficient and effective way.
Terroir /terˈwär/ began as the French word to describe the effect of a given agricultural environment on the characteristics of a wine. It is now recognized that terroir affects all foods and it is the effect on the plant of the soil, the climate and perhaps most importantly the microbes and other critters both helpful and antagonistic. Terroir explains why organic food is consistently rated more flavorful. These flavors come from two sources/families of immune induced products; the terpenes/terpenoids and flavonoids that plants make in response to stress and from the metabolites of microbes.
Organic food has more terpenoids and flavonoids because they are not exposed to pesticides, but rely on working with a healthy microbial community to stay healthy. We know that these terpene and flavonoid substances have huge nutritional value, even though they are not listed as nutrients by the U.S. government which claims that organic food has the same nutritional level as conventionally raised produce. These products have anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-cancer properties. Thus, food grown without pesticides not only saves you from the harmful effects of pesticides, but arms you with protection against cancer, pathogens and inflammatory disease.
Now let’s talk about the microbes. The only way to grow crops without harmful pesticides is to allow the plant to grow the microbial population that it needs. The plant grows this population by secreting nutritional substances that lure the microbes it wants to the root area. When attacked by a pathogen on leaves or root, the plant ups the production of terpenes and flavonoids and secretes specific substances that bring in microbes antagonistic to the pathogen (the soil is the origin of all our antibiotics). These microbes as well as the microbial metabolites can enter the plant and produce flavor, e.g. the major terroir effect on wines. This has been identified as a metabolite of a soil fungus that migrates up the phloem of the plant and is found in the grape. How is this terroir? The fungus or strain of fungus that exists in an area is dependent on the soil, the climate and the grape variety.
Source: What are Terpenoids and What Do They Do?
