As a fellow grower, he understands the value of what they make: “What we’re seeing is when we are working these wonderful programs with the food banks is that everything has a good use and opportunity,” he said. “Things with a little bit of damage on them—it might be sunburn or crookedness on a squash or bell pepper, a super-small cabbage instead of a basketball sized cabbage—it can be used.” With the increased consumer awareness around food waste, a layer of complexity is added to the conversation. If growers are doing everything they can, what amount of culpability falls on the consumer? According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions from human activities in the United States…an estimated 58 percent of the fugitive methane emissions (i.e., those released to the atmosphere) from municipal solid waste landfills are from landfilled food waste.” There are some positive signs that consumers are willing to take action. According to the consumer report Mintel, 70 percent of consumers say they believe buying and using canned/frozen produce is a good way to prevent food waste thanks to its longer shelf life. In the same report, 60 percent of consumers say they would try unfamiliar types of produce if they knew how to cook/prepare them. This indicates that there’s an industry opportunity to expand a consumer’s produce interests and consumption with an education campaign. In California, S.B. 1383, which was signed into law in September 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown and went into effect in January 2022, requires households and businesses to separate all compostables instead of throwing them in the trash. Though some might be uncomfortable with the new step, Kawamura shared that this is a good opportunity for consumers, growers and government to work together to achieve the long- discussed circular economy. “Landscapers can’t take green waste and dump it in the dump anymore,” he said. “You have to turn it into compost or a mulch. We’ve had an agreement with a local Southern California company called Agromin that’s been around for a long time that has developed a more straight line. We get to take the green waste after it’s chopped up and ground up and turned into almost a compost and then we bring it in and then we turn it into compost
on our property. That’s a great soil amendment for us .” Food waste is just another example of how growers approach a challenge with a multi-pronged solution. And though there’s still much work to be done by everyone, grower solutions are limited only by their creativity and resourcefulness
and those fields of possibility are palatial. Fortunately, some growers are already looking ahead at that terrain. “These are the long-standing actions and activities that we’ve all been trying to do,” Kawamura said. “And now with new technologies, we have even better opportunities.”
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CELEBRATING 30 YEARS
MARCH | APRIL 2024
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