Your Daily Dose of Climate Hope: January 7, 2025
A new technique to protect seeds from diseases and pests without using pesticides!
A new technique to protect seeds from diseases and pests without requiring the use of pesticides is spreading rapidly in Europe.
Tell Congress to support R&D of steam seed treatment in the next Farm Bill!
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Reasons For Hope
An emerging Swedish agricultural technology known as ThermoSeed can protect seeds from diseases and pests without requiring the use of pesticides. ThermoSeed works by treating seeds with high-temperature steam in conditions tailored to each specific seed lot, killing any fungi, bacteria, or insects present — essentially “pasteurizing” the seeds similarly to how milk is purified for human consumption. (Notably, pesticide manufacturing and use is highly emissions-intensive, while some pesticides are themselves minor greenhouse gases, making reductions in pesticide use a win for climate as well as biodiversity).
The use of steam seed treatments like ThermoSeed is spreading rapidly through Europe, with excitement around potential expansion into Asia — and perhaps soon, the world! But steam seed treatment hasn’t really gotten any traction in America…yet.
You’ve probably heard already that Congress is still discussing the upcoming Farm Bill, a huge investment in American agriculture (the U.S. spends an average of $648 billion per year on Farm Bill programs) that’s up for renewal for the first time since 2018. As with our previous Farm Bill-related policy actions on climate-resilient crops, methane-reducing vaccines for cattle, methane-eating microbes, phytomining, electro-agriculture, and decentralized clean ammonia production, the just-getting-started field of steam seed treatment is a brand-new invention and not really on the political radar screen yet. That means there’s a really great opportunity here to tell Congress to use the Farm Bill to help promote their research and development!
Tell Congress to support R&D of steam seed treatment in the next Farm Bill!
done! I also liked the Farm Bureau video on sustainable farms- the VT farm video was really great - check it out https://www.fb.org/issue/sustainability. If you choose VT there is an award-winning farm (Choiniere) which is wonderful.