Posted on January, 19, 2024 at 08:03 am
YOU can rarely smell three decades of research. But on a sunny December afternoon in my Oakland, California, apartment, scientific progress smelled just like a loaf of fresh bread.
Pulling any successful bake from the oven is its own kind of reward. But this particular loaf wasn’t a credit to my culinary talents alone: It was made with Climate Blend whole wheat flour, a new product rolled out by Vermont-based King Arthur Baking Co in November.
The oldest flour company in the US, King Arthur committed in 2022 to obtaining all of its wheat from climate-friendly sources by 2030. Climate Blend flour is its first product geared specifically at that goal and uses wheat raised on two farms that employ a technique known as regenerative agriculture. The resulting flour “won’t save the climate”, said Stephen Jones, head of Washington State University’s Breadlab. But it does open a window of opportunity to reimagine how farming could thrive in a warming world.
Two-thirds of the wheat grown in the US is a variety known as hard red, which is planted twice a year like clockwork. This is great for consistency — there are no surprises when you grab a bag of flour off the shelf or load one onto a boat. That constancy, plus ample space for agriculture, helped the US export more than US$8.3 billion (RM38.59 billion) in wheat in 2022, more than any other country.
“If you’re growing wheat for the commodity system and you grow a variety called Brian, it’s all the same,” Jones explained. “You could have 4.05 million ha of it, and it’s all Brian, Brian, Brian.”
To suit any predominant variety of wheat, farmers typically bend conditions in the field — adding fertiliser, for example — which can result in soil depletion, toxic runoff and other adverse impacts. Worse, planting that much Brian becomes an issue (it pains me to say) if the variety doesn’t tolerate certain growing conditions, such as a very wet spring or extreme summer heat.
Washington State’s Breadlab has been working on a different approach for developing grain crops that are economically viable and more sustainable than their traditional counterparts. (Jones began the lab in 1991, and it adopted its current moniker in 2009.) Regenerative agriculture lets genetic diversity flourish, allowing wheat to adapt to the field it’s in instead of the other way around. The result is wheat where every stalk is unique, from colour to genetic makeup.
“It’s more (about) accepting the environment,” Jones said of the regenerative approach to farming.
That’s just the kind of grain that King Arthur, which has backed the Breadlab since 2009, was seeking for its inaugural Climate Blend. While 15% of wheat in the company’s flour is already sourced from regenerative farms — including its white whole wheat — King Arthur’s supply chain doesn’t include working with farmers and breeders on specific types of grains.
“This was a way to, with great intention, go and say, ‘Hey, we wanna bring Breadlab grains to market’,” King Arthur COO Janis Abbingsole said. “Those grains are vital and important.”
Climate Blend Flour
The Climate Blend relies on wheat developed by the Breadlab and two varieties of hard red winter wheat, all produced using regenerative techniques. Crucially, the Breadlab wheat is perennial, meaning it doesn’t have to be planted season after season. That eliminates tilling, the absence of which makes it easier for soil to resist erosion and soak up moisture and nutrients. No-till agriculture also lowers the risk of CO2 stored in the soil escaping into the atmosphere. All those factors help make crops more resilient to an increasingly hot and unstable climate.
That’s not to say the wheat in the climate blend can be grown anywhere. “Regenerative agriculture and our pursuit of it is hyper-regional,” Abbingsole said. And that’s where Brock Linker comes in.
Linker was, in his own words, “born into” farming, and takes an approach to it that’s both cutting-edge and retro. On roughly 2,428ha in Montana, with views that stretch for miles and include five mountain ranges on a clear day, he grows crops that range from chickpeas to canola, and also runs cattle. Mixing up crops and raising animals were once more widespread on farms, but have fallen out of favour with the rise of Big Agriculture.
When King Arthur was spinning up plans for its Climate Blend, the company identified Linker as an ideal farmer to plant the first batch of perennial wheat. He seeded a few hundred acres in October 2022 and harvested the crop in August 2023.
When the flour hit store shelves in November, Linker started getting pictures from friends and family of the green bags in the wild. King Arthur’s Climate Blend has garnered an array of five-star reviews on the company’s website, and with good reason: It makes a great sandwich loaf that’s subtly but unmistakably different and more dynamic than one made with standard whole wheat flour. Linker calls the early demand “consumer validation” of the practices he uses on his farm, and says it could resonate with other farmers.
All told, the Climate Blend relies on a total of 138ha of wheat grown on Linker’s farm as well as another farm in North Dakota. Compared to the 15.09 million ha planted with commodity wheat, it’s clear that sourcing all grains from regeneratively farmed fields remains a tall order. For now, the Climate Blend is a relatively pricey proof of concept.
High Price but Good Returns
King Arthur sells it for US$5.95 per 1kg bag, more than double the price per oz of its regular whole wheat and a shade above the organic version. The company is betting on enough early adopters paying that premium, which would help boost regenerative agri-culture more broadly and ultimately drive down costs. Early returns are promising; Climate Blend was King Arthur’s top-selling whole wheat flour last month, according to the company.
“We can’t tell farmers what to do,” Abbingsole said of King Arthur. “We’ve got to be willing to say that we’ll step into that arena and share some of that risk by having to pay a little more until it becomes more mass practised across the country.”
Jones compares Climate Blend wheat to craft beer: It won’t completely displace the Bud Light that is standard wheat but does offer farmers the chance to rebuild soil health and sequester carbon. Nor will flour buyers suffer for buying something a little different each season. “I’m just saying that it can vary year to year,” he said. “And I think it should.”
Federal and state governments are starting to boost support for regenerative agriculture — Joe Biden administration recently touted US$1.7 billion in related funding — while companies like Bayer AG and Syngenta AG see it as a multibillion-dollar opportunity and firms such as Walmart Inc and General Mills Inc are committing to speed its adoption.
Plenty of hurdles remain. Many corporate commitments don’t yet amount to much more than words, and past federal incentives and regulations did little to tip the scales. But Linker says every new market signal can help make inroads, especially for small farms.
“Farmers don’t tend to like regulations,” he said. “But if there’s a clear, open path to heal soil and make money that levels the playing field.” — Bloomberg
Source: The Malaysian Reserve