D2_Agraria_Journal_21_OPT

10 AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 1) Identify the nutritional variation that exists in crops so that an empirical definition of the nutritional density of any individual crop could be accomplished. 2) Identify the environmental conditions and causal factors that relate to those varied nutrient density readings. 3) Build and calibrate a hand-held nutrient density meter that anyone, from grower to consumer, could use to get a real-time assessment of the food they want so that there would be no need or role for a bureaucratic certification system. 4) Engage as many aligned partners as possible who also had critical subject matter expertise. We call this partnership the Real Food Campaign. In 2017, we created our first generation “Bionutrient Meter” and presented it at the Soil and Nutrition conference that fall. In 2018 we established our first lab to begin identifying the nutritional variation in food and chose two crops to begin with: carrots and spinach. We reached out to our community for volunteers and asked for samples of these two crops to be shipped to the lab. We received samples from gardens, farms, farm stands, grocery stores and farmers markets, ranging from Maine to Iowa. We got local, organic, and not organic. We looked at 16 different elements in the crops, like calcium, potassium, copper and zinc, as well as polyphenols and antioxidants, two well defined plant secondary metabolites associated with flavor and nutritional value. The results we found in this first year of assessment were nothing short of astounding. The variations for mineral levels were from 3:1 to 18:1. As in, this carrot has as much copper as those three carrots, and that leaf of spinach has as much iron as those 18 leaves of spinach. When it came to those higher order nutritional compounds, antioxidants and polyphenols, it was 75:1 – 200:1. As in this leaf of spinach has as many antioxidants as those 75 leaves of spinach and that carrot has as many polyphenols as those 75 carrots. This variation did not correlate with local or organic or any other labeling or marketing type. Some non- organic carrots in a grocery store, for example, had much more nutrition in them than some organic carrots from the local farmers market. In 2019 we added lettuce, cherry tomatoes, kale, and grapes to our assessment process along with soil from 35 farms where those crops were grown, and management and environmental conditions data like cover cropping, crop variety, soil minerals, tillage practice, soil carbon, fertility amendments and fertilizers, irrigation type, soil biological activity, mulching etc. With the 2019 data we now have the ability to overlay all of these different dynamics in relation to each other. After reviewing this information, although from a relatively small data set of 35 farms, it became clear that no one factor like type of seed, no-till, or fertility product correlates with nutrient density variation. It seems to be a combination of these factors. Also in 2019 we were able to verify that the dramatic nutritional variation in crops, both in the mineral levels as well as the higher order compounds, is present in the broader spectrum of crops assessed. The most significant variation we found was the antioxidant levels in spinach: 364.5:1. That means Dan Kittredge PHOTO COURTESY OF BFA