As climate change continues to become a hot topic with record-high temperatures being set, Cape Coral-based health food supplement company Mercola is hoping to do something about it by promoting biodynamic farming.
Mercola has a 10,000-square-foot market at 125 SW Third Place where it showcases 1,400 different kinds of health foods, supplements and other products that are mostly bought online from customers across the country. About 75 of those products resulted from biodynamic farming.
Mercola, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this weekend, is promoting this type of farming because it helps take carbon emissions from the air and put them back into the ground, said Mercola Chief Business Officer Ryan Boland.
Boland just returned to Cape Coral from a tour of the upper Midwest, where he met with farmers and farming companies in Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin. While many have heard of organic-labeled products, the qualifications for a biodynamic label are much stricter, Boland said.
“In biodynamics, it is zero,” Boland said of chemicals used at the participating farms. “It is nothing whatsoever. In addition, organic is not as certain as regenerative. Regenerative agriculture is the key to the future. Regenerating your land.
“The future of farming is rooted in the past. Biodynamics is a 100-year-old standard. Our goal is to take organic farms and transition them to biodynamic.”
Biodynamic products are available in abundance at the Mercola Market with coffee, chocolate, olive oil and health supplements among them. But biodynamic farming in Southwest Florida could prove to be a bigger challenge because citrus farms, for example, are reliant on chemicals in part to prevent citrus greening, a virus that has been attacking citrus crops statewide.
“We’re going to transition farms into regenerative agriculture,” Boland said. “In Florida, what we’re going to do, is we’re going to look around. We have Pine Island Road right down the road here. We have so many different farmers.”
Boland said he’s thrilled with the uptick of biodynamic farms that are changing the way they do things. It creates a more sustainable form of farming, Boland said, as each farm becomes its own ecosystem, free of outside influences and chemicals.
“As you know, we’re living in a new world of climate change and carbon emissions,” Boland said. “Well, we have to realize, there’s a way to pull carbon emissions from the air and move it into the ground. It’s through photosynthesis. The greatest thing about it is carbon in the ground is the key. It’s what makes for a better product. Better food. It actually makes for a better crop.”
It’s not just food and supplements that are being created through biodynamic farming. Starting next week, Mercola will begin selling sheets and later linens, such as towels, that come from biodynamic farming.
“Farming is changing right now,” Boland said. “The world is changing. Everyone’s talking about climate change. The way you can actually make change is through regenerative agriculture. The carbon emissions really tie into putting carbon from the air into the ground. The ultimate way to do that is through proper farming practices.”
