News and commentary on the U.S. food system.
Beans are very beneficial to people and the soil, but the high prices of corn and soybeans, coupled with extreme weather caused by climate change, are threatening domestic production.
Photo Credit: Jasmine Waheed on Unsplash
In the early days of the pandemic, when uncertainties about the future became apparent, many Americans instinctively prepared for the worst, especially storing one food: beans. This makes sense-whether it is dried beans or canned beans, black beans, pinto beans or kidney beans, they are affordable, healthy, and can be stored almost indefinitely without refrigeration. They are suitable for responding to both the climate crisis and the global public health emergency.
They are also an excellent source of protein. On average, one serving causes about one-tenth of the greenhouse gas emissions compared to a serving of beef. Beans use water efficiently and leave nitrogen in the soil for the next crop to use, thereby reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers. The United Nations even declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses, calling pulses (including the categories of beans, peas and lentils) the "food of the future."
Founder Steve Sando said that the popular heirloom bean company Rancho Gordo has seen a significant increase in demand in the winter of 2019 due to the Instant Pot boom and the popular recipe Cool Beans. Then, when the pandemic hit, Sando stated that the company had a six-week waiting time for orders and eventually doubled sales in 2020.
Now, a year and a half later, beans are still in demand, but American farmers are not lining up to grow them. Compared with 2020, the beans harvested by farmers in 2021 will be reduced by 300,000 acres.
This change is partly attributable to the increase in market forces and extreme weather associated with climate change, which are also intertwined. Although some people say that changes in planting and yields are normal, and part of the decline is due to over-planting in previous years, others in the industry are worried about the future of beans and whether they can continue to provide adequate supplies of beans. Maintain inventory in American pantry. Historically, the amount of beans imported by the United States has been very small, and the mass production here is used for domestic supply and export.
"In the long run, it's a bit disturbing," said Mark Kirsten, president of the California Bean Transporters Association, who runs a wholesale bean business in Lodi, California, which has been in his family for decades.
On the other hand, Tony Roelofs, vice president of the beans division of Columbia Grain International, headquartered in Oregon, believes that the steady increase in beans consumption over the past 20 to 25 years will drive production in the right direction. If he is right, it can push the food system into a more climate-friendly future. "As we continue to increase the population globally, there are still problems with water supply and arable land demand... Pulse crops have great advantages," he said. "It is a cheaper protein and a more environmentally friendly protein."
According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), since the 1970s, the per capita consumption of beans in the United States has more than tripled, and the number of black beans and black eyed peas consumed by Americans has steadily increased. However, production did not follow a linear upward trend. Between 2012 and 2017, the planting area increased slightly, but after reaching its peak in 2017 and 2018, the output dropped sharply in 2019, rebounded in 2020, and dropped again in 2021. (These statistics do not include the acreage of chickpeas or lentils, which has grown more significantly in the past decade, but has also declined in recent years.)
Depending on the variety, beans are grown in many different states across the country. In a given year, Camellia, a fourth-generation bean company based in New Orleans, may get Lima from growers on the West Coast, black eyed peas from the south, red kidney beans from the middle of the country, and variegated from the middle of the United States. bean. Camellia CEO Vince Hayward (Vince Hayward) said, Dakota.
"Every year is a comparison between corn prices, wheat prices or soybean prices. Farmers will make wise decisions about what they need to grow to feed their farms and families."
Hayward and all other industry sources contacted for this article stated that the sharp increase in commodity crop prices is the biggest factor affecting supply. When these prices rise, farmers have less space to grow dry beans (except for soybeans, most of which are not eaten by people). "Every year is a comparison between corn prices, wheat prices or soybean prices, and farmers make wise decisions about what they need to grow to feed their farms and families," Hayward explained. This year, the spread is more extreme.
In the northern states of the plains, the high prices of corn and soybeans, and other market forces that favor these commodities, have also led farmers to cultivate grasslands to grow these crops. In September, the USDA estimated that the average corn and soybean prices in 2021 ($5.45 and $12.90 per bushel, respectively) were the third highest since 1960. According to some factors, the price of black beans may be three times that of corn, but the yield of corn is so high that farmers can earn twice or more per acre.
"This makes specialty crops very difficult," said Tom Harmon, the general manager of Jack Bean, a company based in Holyoke, Colorado, from about 30% of the total sales in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas. A grower collects red kidney beans and pinto beans. "We have to [provide] fairly high prices to be able to compete... when [farmers] can grow traditional crops more easily."
Photo courtesy of Roger Smith on Flickr with CC license.
In Rancho Gordo, Sando was frustrated with this push and pull of the commodity system, in which the yield per acre dominated the conversation, so he worked outside it most of the time, establishing a direct long-term relationship with the farmers who planted Rancho Gordo every year. Relationship. However, when he tries to meet the growing demand, it is still difficult to convince new farmers to plant heirloom varieties, because the yield may even be lower than that of traditional beans.
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"We have a very good farm relationship, but it is still not enough. This is where we continue to work hard," Sando said. "This year, we made a 20-acre pilot farm near Lodi so we can show potential farmers what we are doing. This is not voodoo. There is an old-school mentality [saying] that every acre must produce this Many pounds... But the end result is that we pay more, we charge more, and everyone wins. Our [beans] are more expensive, but each serving is still a few cents."
Harmon said that dry beans are also more risky than corn or soybeans. Time, harvest and required machinery are more complicated, and if corn is sent to a silo to feed animals, the weather’s damage to the corn crop may not be so important, while kidney beans go to the supermarket to display transparent bag shelves that will not be hailed, etc. Destroyed or damaged by extreme weather.
Although Harmon said that the storms in his area have not gotten worse in the past few years, extreme weather conditions have severely affected production elsewhere, increasing the risks faced by growers and possibly increasing the reasons why they may choose to plant. List higher-priced corn crops instead of risking losses.
"The weather is more extreme than we are used to," Hayward observed. "Either too wet or too dry."
The data supports his statement. According to data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the most "billion-dollar weather event" in history occurred in 2020 and 2021, that is, a storm that caused a loss of 1 billion dollars or more. One-third of the damage occurred in the past five years.
This year's drought has hit bean farmers particularly hard. "This is undoubtedly one of the worst droughts we have experienced in North Dakota," said Roelofs of Columbia Grain. This year’s drought also destroyed oat fields in North America, resulting in the smallest harvest ever.
"If the farmer only has a certain amount of water, the question is: where do I go to use it? In most cases, beans will not be at the top of the list."
California’s water shortage is even more serious. The past 12 months have been the driest month in a century, partly because of climate change leading to higher temperatures. Kirsten said that for farmers in the southern part of the state, water is particularly scarce. When farmers have to plant less land for protection, they will choose to grow more valuable crops on these limited land.
"In California, beans are not at the bottom of the list, but they are certainly not top crops," he said. He said that although beans require less water than many other crops and can rotate nitrogen among other higher-value crops such as tomatoes, farmers may not think of that when resources are scarce year after year. Far. "If they only have a [certain] amount of water, the question is: where do I put it? In most cases, beans will not be at the top of the list."
Everyone in the industry said that these weather disruptions, high commodity prices, and some small pandemic-related shocks (such as increased trucking demand) have combined to cause tight supply. But they did not agree on how long these issues will last. Hayward and Kirsten both expressed serious concerns about the future, while Harmon and Rolovs were more optimistic.
Either way, they will try to persuade more farmers to grow beans, especially when the demand does not seem to have diminished. He said that although Rancho Gordo's Steve Sando believes that the sharp increase in sales in 2020 may be entirely due to panic buying, sales in 2021 are only 4% lower than the peak, which shows that demand is still strong.
Farmers in Rancho Gordo, Mexico lost their crops this year due to severe flooding, and Sando is worried that extreme heat and drought may affect his growers in California, but in this case, he hopes that farmers will increasingly want to grow beans Class, used for nitrogen fixation potential and as a green manure spit back into the pods in the field. When he first started selling heirloom beans, he often wondered why more American farmers did not grow more, considering how delicious, healthy, environmentally friendly and affordable they are.
"It turns out that there are many reasons why [they don't], but I'm very lucky, and... I don't like that reality, so I created my own reality," he said. "There are so many terrible things that have happened, and you have to do your best, just like next summer."
Lisa Held is a senior policy reporter for Civil Eats. Her stories about food systems, sustainable agriculture, and food policy have appeared in many publications, including Eater, NPR's The Salt, and Edible Manhattan. She also produces and hosts the weekly podcast "Farm Report" on traditional radio networks. In the past, Lisa reported on health and wellness for publications such as The New York Times and Women's Health, and served as an editor at Well Good. She is based in Baltimore and Washington, DC, and holds a master's degree from Columbia University School of Journalism. Read more>
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The new research looks at how climate change will affect crop yields and foods rich in micronutrients such as zinc, vitamin A and iron, thereby putting low- and middle-income countries at greater risk of malnutrition.
Author: Liza Gross, Inside Climate News
Author: Liza Gross, Inside Climate News
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