KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustanability Segment: Stephen Jones

this is diane warren's your host on the sustainability segment of mind over matter is empty at the seattle ninety point three of them by mobile app and on the web add k e x he died orgy my guest this morning is stephen jones director of the washington state university bred lab steven jones is here to tell us about the work of the brand lab to breed and develop publicly available varieties of cranes and other crops that will benefit farmers processors and end users while enhancing access to affordable and nutritious food for all members of our community is welcome what was the red flags started first i should say where we're located at there were north of seattle and get the county and we work with growers in this region and our region of basically left of the cascades or nineteen counties left in the cascade mountain range and it has an area marked by small farms and diverse farm and farms basically a rare because we're all out of that commodity fifteens here on our county the

average farm five with about a hundred acres the average farm five in the nation has about eight thousand acres so are small and the person i should say to afford to get too far into it that forty four percent of the farmers in the state of washington are worth of the cascade mountains but it's not a fact that commonly put out there but it's an important one so we are the bread lab in two thousand and eight we are part of portland state university we started it to add value to farmers rotations where there is very little value not playing that buys say we work with potato farmers and tv producer of the vegetable producers and tulip and daffodil growers all of these folks need to grow grains in their rotation to improve their soil attributes fight against the leaves and things like that have helped the rotations so they rotate with wheat or barley or something like

that's very good for everything at the economically when you get a wheat and barley in your rotation there was very little interest from them they've have learned the farmer here said that he used to grow wheat for fun and sometimes profit that's not a very good business models so we chose a sort of the low end of the rotation scale to add value to give farmers more value where there is very little and the way we do that is to make week unknown commodity give it some unique characteristics in terms of flavor and nutrition and things like that and then sort of an added benefit is we're keeping value work actually for dove soap we grow wheat or barley north of seattle that wheat or barley can be molded here or mill and then baked her brood are distilled in the various products he needs time that you go to one of those groups you add value and that i could stay here the overriding theme of the bread last

set yet though for every three patients walk in state university here and get the valley and there's never really been a breeding program for grades over on the part of the day though or plant breeder first then again we moved here in two thousand made from the eastern part of the state and we started really weak because the growers wanted that they fed to add value to a part of their rotation but there is nowhere for us to care that you do for the grain flow for growing week that they're about a place which you didn't get the valley then where they're going to fit what do we do with that the notion that what we had nowhere to pathogens that we develop the laboratory and called the pratt laboratory in what it is basically is if they small craft bakery with technical equipment and five or so we can work directly with chefs and bakers then miller's been weakened know about a flower nor a convicted in the bread and things like that and i should say to that we work

with i'm a retired whole grain product we feel that a very important for what we do it well also the goal of the bread lambert first to make it work for the farmer and they play a lobbyist or a more fill even a plant breeder would put the farmer first thinking that that howard the case but actually it's not self we're working in a commodity hulu would be developed in variety for would be the industry as opposed to the grower than the gore would grow up with for industry if we work for the girl first the matter is our main goal is to make things work for the farmer and we can figure out the use of independent of any theft of after that so the goal is to develop weeks barley beings buckwheat rye very strange that can work for a farmer in conventional or organic systems with a few of them out and then put the best yield within those employees and then have some value within the community in terms

of flavor or functionality or something like that for the goals are to make it work for the former and keep value as close within the region as possible and then they all make sense after that what is your approach to plant breeding what do you select grains for what criteria the years so horrified by that were gmo free we don't use gmo technology than our program and we'll both try to make what we do in the public interest but also available to the public so we don't walk up things through intellectual property and other techniques the technique that we use of the fame that were you know our universities started making ninety eight so they don't go backwards but we do value things from the past that have value continuously for the first wheat breeder with hired a barbecue making ninety four the first we cross the

field of all the varieties or maybe making ninety eight when you did that same technique today material from around the world and then we see how it does in our environment in our environment with a catchy quite different than eastern washington or can someone like that really get the materials would be what does well we talked to the farmers and the what they're looking for maybe something that earlier or shorter or whatever it is and then we make of crosses get the mature are going in the field as quickly as we can in something that we do that is unique as well as we keep variation within the field so we don't do a strip monoculture we keep a lot of variation and diversity in the wheat field so that other climate changes it can adapt with the environment and with a system that then that if that makes sense so politically weak a very uniform as you drive by wheat fields all the fame the field that we were with look very different

lot of variation left and how we do the reading and then later that were informed throughout that process through members of our community and there's people that he thinks the let us know what theyre looking for as well i'm diana holland and my guest is steven jones director of the washington state university bred lab and your turn to the sustainability segment of mind over matter isn't most empowered k x p ninety point three of them by mobile and on the web add k e x the minority which is a more about who you collaborate with locally in this gadget valley fading the first went to work with the community and i'll get back to that and the moment but there are thirteen flour mill in our valley one of fairhaven organic farm bill clinton karen spring snow so we work with the miller we work with gather valuable thing which is a new walt healthier we work which up in a brewery with one that calorie count seattle grand central an essential in the cream on many of the

bakeries in the region we were very directly with those papers we work with chaplin restaurant we started here very locally in a way that to the region and nationally as well in working with our community we think it's important that we have improved that that for good food within our communities are very interested in brain price point down and what we'd do another good job for plant breeders to increase yield in a meaningful way so that the price can come down for mailers are bakers or even serious home bakers school this gadget community foundation bottled little portable oven so that we could bring it to food banks shelters and even the public library so we did a workshop in the public library in november where about forty two people on a tuesday night baking bread in among the bookshelves with a number of public library the lack of availability of basic food but also knowledge of how to cook and bake again

and things like that's where we try to work with as much of our communities we can ball professionally and then an official level as well what are some examples of grain specifically adapted to western washington that you've helped develop we really the new variety of wheat called capital of an online gamer probably that changed that made him a little cocky but that the first week have been developed we believe in the united states in the past hundred years that have defined pathetically for a whole week use it never been made and to white flour it's what's called a modern land race which means that have a lot of variation left and that it's one of the bakers and miller it's really like a lot we also are involved in getting them right out to the people that a system was developed by a retired english professor at western washington university we

did a sort of a hobby it's a really nice week as well were working on making more barley for mobile and then something really interested in this week and making that more publicly available buckwheat is a tough crop for farmers can get because they're such little research done automotive that researchers from the private sector so it's tough to get like that you know buckwheat coming out soon being fun of our former students bridge it might sound something to do very well here is well dr biggs so we're trying to get a range nike variation in our field but also on our plates as well we can also comment on the twenty all i've read that you've developed we've been working on perennial form of wheat or something similar two weeks in nineteen ninety five and the internal be a long term project but we have a new one called playlist blew it the blue

colonel week and the notion on a perennial is to reduce the importance at a little more back to the environment and we're taking out so we also named thats one of the new species last fall which we believe has not been done by wheat breeders in the country to forestall we readers development relief varieties that have quite rare conveyance patrolling in the cities and renamed one are an awfully i named in honor of pawn off the who was a kid professor adel the issue starting in the twenties and then up until the seventies and she basically been forgotten in her science of my clients which is genetics we want to honor the work that he did for the name of that is off the eye after professor onofre what if the implications of the red land's effort for the locals gadget economy well we're at the port of gadget we rent a port of gavin and happy martin

executive director of the port of gadget that the brand lab as contributed to or directly been given credit for created two hundred jobs at the port of that hidden within the community in the past two years and things are good living wage jobs we think that's important as well but that's one their flow through new jobs and job creation but then also in the farming community has that name from value again to that sort of downside and downplay the negative way but a downside economically up their rotation which of the wheat and barley so they can get more for their wheat barley and not have to truck it down to portland that an economic benefit as well then we would hope that there's an environmental benefit of growing wheat and barley and buckwheat of being things that do better here and buy better think they create more while mattson thinks chicken that more resources back in the soil and make our agriculture a little less extract so you're taking climate change into

account and your credit rating we take climate change in detail dalian what we do we're all feeling that would require breeders or not something is going on that's for sure for a plant breeder you can hear him because of one year she wouldn't predict and neck so for help in a variety of really well here we would think that it would do well the following year and the following year or the following year that not true that makes brady very complicated human progress was predictable as well to kind of be less predictable folk one way around that is to create a variety that have more variation and diversity left in them though a lot of where i really learned how things go long duration we keep it in there and we think it's very important that if you have a field of wheat and you have thousands of types in there didn't want

it and you have a hot dry year one year in a cold wet year or the mac store for even or in fact whatever is causing damage to the crop by chance it will affect every individual in the field and that's one strategy to combat climate change but to work with the power plants you've all over time within the field thought variation and diversity is the key to working with the variation and diversity so generic version of field variation and diversity in terms of what climate were exposed to wet weather systems are coming through so we work on that quite often you're tuned to the sustainability segment of mind over matter is i'm katie at the seattle ninety point three of them by mobile app and on the web add caveats the data orgy and i am one and my guest is steven jones director of the washington state university bred lab which you speak about your collaboration with chipotle it so the delta founder aaa came

to earth orbit of at least three years ago maybe even more than that and he felt that they could come to a point in their root systems where they had sort of gone through things and cleaned them up cleaned up their menu a cleaner mean by pure ingredients and how things are traded so the animals would be not confined and things like that they got to the flour tortilla and that common with other folks that we work with as well they are gritty then figure out well what flowers going into the crust well very much a public health threat of flour tortilla had twelve ingredients and it and they want to reduce those are working with them we are able to get that pound the five ingredients so take out about the note seven or america benefit not those of the better years but those about the produce that product one way to look at a food label that ingredient out why those

ingredients are in there and in many cases in breathless pace of bread made about four ingredients if you're twenty five and there was twenty one extra ingredients are not there to make our lives better they're there to make the manufacturers life easier and possibly better more economical so helper if and preservatives and things like that so to pull ahead made the point that they wanted to have a clean tortillas cleaning quote but removed from ingredients so we're able to do that with them while adding more whole grain to the thirtieth out what's fascinating is that you can make that vision of the company but then you also adopt agree to make the changes required how you the authority for kids or your refrigerator freezer and how are they going to be plenty of facility how often have the economic or daily or weekly or what were the first step in any change for people that we work with is do they want to do and do they realize that their

decision of course not ours but are they willing to make the changes that would make that possible and it was successful they had a presser we found out a few months ago pointed to take a willingness to do it in mr barrett if you want something to change history pretty simple but you might have to change to meet the changing iraq and four what is your collaboration with the aaa fit with the idea of keeping things local of keeping value in this gadget so some of the week that going into their larger to come from here it will the camel country mill in eugene oregon and that's a good point and i will speak for them but that's where they're attempting to go to have to regionalize those types of products very have been in other parts of their group but then the flour and a regional like that and at least for the northwest aren't i know that they're putting flour that's grown here read julian and of mail that can of country nail down in eugene it's an issue that we struggle with too in terms of

scale and a good part of yale and maybe the more negative parts of scale that back and how wrong things and an early one in which a poet was they like the week that we suggested that we work so much that they wanted all of them and that doesn't work because the polls out of unification paul the school systems and shops and bakeries damaging aromatic not occurred just for that reason there needs to be some give and take their where you don't wanna lose your focus of why we're all doing this in the first place they were going that way in terms of say they didn't want to just pull everything out that everyone had worked so hard to get employee so the notion of scale was quite the name africa complications from and identify pollard aspect and then agreeing to some pressures that may have unintended consequences but with this one it worked fine we're enough of the weak state in the region there are a lot of people what do you consider to be the bread landscape this

accomplishments so far i think it's probably several but one of the farmers in this part of the state no longer use the word commodity it's very rare when we first got here we would talk about commodities we all talk a lot and then we came to the notion that let's talk about food and not a commodity that even use the word agriculture as much as we use the word food flew to be employed and we use agriculture to get there and that somewhat novel or possibly the radical but just the idea that authority and then describe how we want our food or do you know in a way where we can have living wages and a minimal impact on the environment whatever the lookout but let's talk about food and coal agriculture gently in that direction is going to lower have impact that way right in this conversation a bit to mr nadler has been talking about that were all growing up

the intention of food and i think that part of that right i had a similar effort here is going on elsewhere we work with drexel university in downtown philly and one of president obama's former promise to bring food and urban level also the carrier but love all around philadelphia so helping growers there were working on the nutritional delivery of good food in an urban setting where also working with tufts university in boston on nutritional impact of what we do and how to improve their working with the school of nutrition policy their cars again bring in a local growers but also koppelman him what each of us can do in that case bring in just a real eye level school of nutrition we have graduate student exchange between those we were university of colorado colorado springs he has a really great grain program there in

colorado springs and he is also a nutritionist so oversold academic want to know in terms of farming and knowing we work with folks in vermont and north carolina in arizona and a lot of them down and all of the various so we were primarily in areas that are not considered weak felt very over traditional wheat growing areas with many in the community had grains and they want to bring those back to their community for economic or even what all of this for the food fans of what they do for work in quite a curator also working on the island of crete angry we work in europe another point though it's quite a movement that we go to the group in a chant her favorite has been a readjustment of what isn't science teacher and long term goals the long term goal of and i should say that you dont write down because of we had we couldn't certainly compared to me we knew what we wanted to do a general but very specific goal

nutrition with a functionality of a functional can we bring delicious math more into our food equations mundane that we can we develop ways we can and then can we use them as a very efficient nutritional delivery mechanism i know it sounds kind of cold on our plate but if we look at it is we are delivering attrition in a delicious way and then in a way that functionally looks appealing is agreeable to folks that if we're doing a hundred percent whole week with thoughts or bread you know with the cream or is that your grand central are the bread farm appear whatever bakers are working like can we do something that the other recent whole week and people wouldn't have tolerated but that actually want and where they are now it is getting more more folk to realize that a whole grain they don't have to

tolerate there's a deliciousness there and there's no excuse for not having one that's very good that we're striving for is the more general use of whole grains i think as one sort of overarching factor of what we do and the way you look at that to the best use of our landfill right now you're eating white flowery lyrical even seventy percent of the week that was harvested all that so hundred pounds of wheat that seventy pounds a white flower hundred pounds of wheat that's a hundred pounds of whole wheat flour so we see that as the best use of our land to a polite way to bring it full circle where they bring in the life of mr nutritional value and then tied into the best use of the land for those are some of the ways are growing i would say it's a more weak or orally or whole grain i would say don't be afraid of baking if you use the bacon went away for murder you never have they'll put too much pressure on yourself it's not that

difficult to make a good loaf of bread that the north have to look perfect and it's going to be economical in a cave for the new in your friends or family are you know like if i would play more home baked more home and just sort of appreciate the beauty you can find in your food will thanks so much for being here you were just listening to stephen jones director of the washington state university bred lab for more information on the web at the french lab doc dopey as stu dot edu sustainability sigman interviews are available as podcasts along with caveats fees music podcast go to the podcast section of caveats these website and caveats the fado it i'm diane horn thanks for listening and be sure to tune in to the sustainability segment again next week on mr howard ninety point three fm by mobile app and add k e x the fado it