(Editor's Note: This piece is adapted from the keynote address given at Reaching the New York City Market: A summit on linking the supply chain between western New York state producers and the New York City market, held April 23 at Alfred State College, Alfred, New York.

To show just how much to earth has shifted, I want to start with a question:

Who said recently: "It is absolutely critical that manufacturers take a preventative approach by identifying and evaluating potential hazards, and by building food safety into the manufacturing process from the very beginning."

Was it
A. Dick Durbin, the liberal Congressman
B. Michael Taylor, who imposed meat industry regulations after Jack-in-the-Box e. coli outbreak in the Clinton years
C. Ralph Nadar
D. The Grocery Manufacturers of America (which represents companies such as ConAgra, PepsiCo and Kraft), and the Food Marketing Institute (which represents major retailers such as Wal-Mart and Hy-Vee).

If you knew for sure it was D-the groups which have historically opposed clearer nutritional and sourcing information-you also know that we have arrived at a new day in terms of commercial responsibility for health, safety and environmental behavior.

It's in the air and on the ground, waiting to put "wind in the sales" of businesses that get out front, and ready to scorn sectors that demand a pass from innovating and bootstrapping their way toward serious sustainability.

What I'll say today revolves around three concepts: Carbon  connections . and culture.

Everyone who will speak later today knows more than I do about their fields and about how things work in New York-about what they buy, market and all the constraints that conspire to limit their choices to do things better.

They know in painful detail about how those choices have been diminished by our current economic disruption. These impacts ricochet through the complex web of deals, relationships, contracts, efficiencies, logistics and demands that make up the current "food system" that feeds New York City.

But rather than a food "system"-which implies strategic planning to identify top wants and needs, then designing the best plan to deliver them-we have a vast collection buying and selling decisions that have evolved over time from the best individual deal that thousands of buyers and sellers can come up with.

The fact that it works as well as it does is a testimony to the power of market dynamics. The fact that it doesn't work better-in all the ways that have been exposed in the past year-is why we are here today.

CARBON-I work in a barn on a 300-acre research farm in southeast Pennsylvania. For 30 years, we've been experimenting to improve organic farming practices to produce the primary cash crops of our neighbors-corn, soybeans, small grains and hay.

Without pesticides or synthetic fertilizer, we've added amazing amounts of carbon (in the form of soil organic matter) to our organic fields, while producing yields comparable to our side-by-side non-organic, conventional plots managed to landgrant standards.

We add to the soil, and keep in the soil, a long-term average of 1,000 to 2,000 pounds of carbon per acre per year, year after year, on the non-chemical fields thanks to the basic organic practices of:

    * crop rotations (growing a sequence of different crops in a given field)
    * cover crops to build and protect soil on all fields
    * and occasional use of compost as a soil amendment. We minimize tillage, but plow occasionally in the rotation, and still add about one-tenth of a percent of SOM each year.

Our big deal is in following the carbon flow from plant to soil in this system, particularly in observing the improvements to soil structure, water-holding capacity and micro-biodiversity over those years.

CONNECTIONS-By sharing the dramatic scientific data on soil improvement and carbon sequestration from organically management practices, we're showing farmers, policy makers, food buyers and families the tremendous impact they can have in moving toward a more ecologically responsible future.

My work puts me at the edge of emerging agricultural markets, where entrepreneurs, farmers, urban foodies, farmer-based organizations, nutrition specialists, food-justice advocates, enlightened environmentalists and animal welfare groups are united in investing in sustainable farming that works for farmers because it works for everybody.

But all of these collaborators, and all of us, have yet to really see the enormity of what lies immediately ahead, as the worlds of food, water, energy, climate, ecology and economy collide in ways none of us have yet experienced.   

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