West Coast farms produce more than 90 percent of the broccoli consumed in the United States.
West Coast farms produce more than 90 percent of the broccoli consumed in the United States. With production mainly in California, and concentrated in Monterey County, this creates a food security issue, especially in light of California droughts in recent years, and long supply chains to the East Coast, according to Phillip Coles, professor of practice in management at Lehigh.
Because of this, in 2010, Cornell University–with funding from the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through the Specialty Crops Research Initiative–began The Broccoli Project in an effort to create a high quality, year-round supply of Eastern-grown broccoli. The project was approved for an additional $5 million in USDA funding to fund the effort for another five years.
As part of the project, plant breeders at Cornell are developing strains of broccoli that can be grown successfully on the East Coast, the caveat being the new broccoli strains grown on the East Coast continue to have slightly different quality characteristics.
Read more at Lehigh University
Image via Pexels
