Over the decades, we’ve incubated many organizations, movements, and even products.
Cover Crops Come to the Cafeteria
Today, hundreds of patients and students across New England have the option of choosing a unique falafel as part of their meal. Unlike traditional falafel, which is made from chickpeas, this menu item is made from yellow peas. Chickpeas don’t grow in New England, whereas yellow peas are a hardy cover crop with a high protein content that’s widely grown in the region. Getting those yellow pea falafels from field to plate took almost five years of development and collaboration between multiple partners. As part of a project led by Health Care Without Harm, NCAT worked with Aurora Mills Farm in Linneus, Maine, to develop the yellow pea supply for processing. Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, developed a recipe that met the nutritional requirements of schools and hospitals. CommonWealth Kitchen, an incubator for food entrepreneurs in Dorchester, Massachusetts, further refined the recipe, scaled up the production, and worked with institutional partners to get this healthy, plant-based protein dish on menus across the state and region.
Yellow peas are a highly effective cover crop, but they have little cash value for farmers. Replacing chickpeas that travel thousands of miles with yellow peas from a neighboring state allows large institutions to reduce food miles and support local farmers. NCAT worked with Sara Williams Flewelling of Aurora Mills, a small family farm in Maine, to create a new market for this crop, providing an additional revenue source for the farmer and contributing to the effort to develop local food systems.
“NCAT and the project partners successfully created a value chain for increasing plant-based proteins offered in hospitals,” explains Andy Pressman, NCAT’s Director of Agriculture. “We led the creation of an appropriate scale of production so that every partner in the chain was profitable while meeting institutional budgets: Beginning with field production and the milling of yellow peas in Maine and through the final steps of working with Commonwealth Kitchen in Boston to process the pea flour in to the fritter product that was distributed to regional hospitals. Through this project we demonstrated how a regional food system can support several businesses in order to provide healthy plant-based options to institutions and at scale.”
A Local Food System Comes to Fruition in the Rio Grande Valley
The phrase “Somehow it started with NCAT” is commonly heard in discussions about improving local food systems and adopting sustainable agriculture in Texas. Nearly a decade ago, NCAT opened its Southwest Regional office in San Antonio. This initiative sparked a movement of innovation, friendships, and partnerships across the state and especially in the Rio Grande Valley.
The Rio Grande Valley is a leading source for organic produce, both locally grown and imported from neighboring Mexico. But despite these agricultural riches, the region is home to one of the unhealthiest populations in the country, with high rates of food insecurity and disease caused by inadequate access to healthy food. Relatively little of the food grown in the Rio Grande Valley is eaten in the Valley.
Over the past decade, NCAT has played a central role in building the Rio Grande Valley Working Group, a partnership that brings together more than a dozen local stakeholders across agriculture, policy, higher education, community action, healthcare, and economic development to co-create a resilient and inclusive food system in the Rio Grande Valley.
The impact of this work was visible at the 2024 Texas Hispanic Farmer and Rancher Conference and Food Summit, a four-day, bilingual event that was the result of nearly a decade of NCAT’s efforts to bridge the gaps between those involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of food in the Rio Grande Valley.
After a decade of NCAT’s close involvement in building the infrastructure for a thriving local food system, we celebrate the fact that The Food Summit has evolved into a hyper-local food systems movement in the Rio Grande Valley, supported by a Food Charter and led by local organizations and individuals. We are extremely proud of this collective achievement and remain committed to turning this local vision into action.
Bringing Wool Back to the Northern Great Plains
NCAT is working with partners to build markets for domestic cotton, wool, and fabrics and clothing made from these materials. We work with farmers and ranchers to raise awareness of these potential new markets, and we provide incentives to encourage the adoption of conservation practices that increase yields on grazing lands, protect water sources, and improve soil health.* A rancher in our program shared that working with NCAT has allowed his ranching operation to “have access to funding to try things we have never been able to try, like cover crops.” This rancher is grateful for the opportunity to try new practices and participate in building new markets for his wool. “All we can do is keep trying, and if we can’t make it work then it’s the end of an era of large-scale wool sheep operations,” he observes.
*As of this writing, the Partnership for Climate Smart Commodities grant, which funded this work, has been terminated by the USDA. Current grantees have been invited to reapply under new guidelines, which NCAT plans to do.
AgriSolar Clearinghouse: Laying the Foundation for a New Approach to Agriculture and Energy
Launched in 2021 with funding from the Department of Energy, the AgriSolar Clearinghouse is a collaborative technical assistance community of over 50 partners and stakeholders, designed to support the co-location of solar and agriculture. In just three years, we built a robust network of partners and stakeholders that includes the country’s leading agrisolar experts and organizations, universities, pollinator advocates, and community organizers.
The Clearinghouse supports a strong community of more than 8,000 members that includes farmers, graziers, beekeepers, researchers, land managers, solar advocates, and community empowerment groups. We work to educate both farmers and communities about the benefits of co-location, which include preserving farmland, reducing the need for mechanized mowing around solar installations, creating pollinator havens, and protecting farmworkers by increasing access to shade. To build community support for co-location, the AgriSolar Clearinghouse hosted Follow the Sun tours around the country: field trips to agrivoltaics installations and farm-to-table celebrations that showcased the food grown under solar panels.
In 2024, we published Best Practices in AgriSolar, the definitive guide to all aspects of co-location, with contributions from many of the leading voices in the field. The funding for this project has ended, but we are proud of our role in helping to build the infrastructure required to harvest the sun twice.
SUPPORT US
NCAT works across the country with farmers and ranchers to support them in adopting regenerative agriculture practices. Recent government funding cuts are limiting our ability to do this work. Your support today will allow us to continue to provide services to farmers and ranchers who want to adopt practices that will help ensure the health of their soil, their families, and their communities.
Thank you for helping us continue to build the world we all want to live in.
