By Ariel Miller, ESRAG Newsletter Editor
A Journey Towards Sustainable Solutions
As farmers worldwide struggle to survive rising risks and costs, an American Rotarian is bringing his entrepreneurial expertise to their aid, and relishing the challenge. Lance Miller, a member of Rotary LA 5 in Los Angeles, California, is the CEO of TerraX, a company that connects start-up producers of environmentally sustainable solutions directly to the farmers who are trying to stay in business. “All the products we carry allow farmers to get higher yields with less inputs,” he explains. “These products can salvage a lot of independent family farms – can help them survive financially.”
Agriculture Benefits
A new ESRAG member, Miller emailed us when we asked readers to share their experiences in sustainable food systems. This led to a fascinating conversation about how leading TerraX has reconnected this mega-city dweller to his rural childhood, and how being part of Rotary has restored him to the sense of community he enjoyed growing up in a farm town of 2,000 where families had built multigenerational friendships.
TerraX markets agricultural solutions, including a water treatment system that makes water more bio-acceptable to the plant, resulting in saving 25% of water in irrigation, without needing chemicals or electricity, and a foliar treatment, made from plant extracts, that protects crops from many pathogens and enhances water absorption. “We are advancing food security in a more environmentally sustainable way. All our products are disruptive to the market they serve,” Miller says. For example, “the foliar spray reduces fertilizer and pesticide sales by 50%, so we have to get directly to the end user rather than the suppliers who also sell the fertilizers and pesticides.”
This direct connection is equally vital to the survival of the inventors and producers of new, sustainable technologies, “workable solutions that weren’t being marketed effectively to potential customers,” Miller explains. “Many innovative firms are too small to take on the marketing and distribution individually. My team and I know how to structure the marketing and distribution of products. The manufacturers do a great job making it and we do a great job getting to the market through trade shows and media coverage.”
From Corporate Boardrooms to Family Farms
Giving farmers a fighting chance is restoring this Los Angeles resident to his rural roots. An expert in corporate start-ups and business turnarounds, Miller’s career included marketing and brand management for Nestlé and Anheuser Busch, and extensive global travel for business and philanthropic endeavours. But he grew up in a close-knit Indiana farming town on a family farm that dates back to 1830.
His family owned and operated a dairy processing and ice cream manufacturing plant. “I grew up seeing how an entire business worked, from picking up milk on the farm, processing and bottling it and then delivering to the consumer – I’ve always had that awareness,” he explains. “I remember riding around at the age of 3 with my dad picking up milk on the farms, and when I was six riding with our drivers bringing glass bottles from the front door of homes back to the truck.”
“I always wanted to bring out products that were beneficial,” he adds. “I didn’t want the hallmark of my life being that I sold more dry cat food than somebody else!”
And so, after striking out on his own as a consultant, he began to connect with innovators who were creating sustainable technologies to reduce costs and improve productivity in agricultural, commercial, industrial, and marine enterprises. TerraX is partnering with the NGO Global Green, the American affiliate of Green Cross International, which was founded by Mikhail Gorbachev and Diane Meyer-Simon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across major sectors. Global Green’s vision is “an abundant future for all people, places, and planet. We envision a planet where there is no conflict between our economic needs and sustainable systems of life,” which requires “a global response to keep us within safe planetary boundaries.”
The multiplying pressures threatening farmers’ ability to stay in business include dwindling aquifers, killer heatwaves, massive storms, and depleted soil fertility. Speciality crops like berries, figs, almonds, and avocados are highly perishable and have very small profit margins. Crop loss insurance for these products is prohibitively expensive. In the Western United States, where fast-growing cities and farmers must compete for every drop of water from drought-shrunken rivers and reservoirs, governments are putting meters on water tables and increasing water restrictions.
TerraX’s Innovative Agricultural Sustainable Solutions
University Study on Crop Yields
TerraX’s two agricultural products have been approved by Global Green and field-tested by university research teams on corn, rice, and speciality crops around the world, including India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Turkey, Spain, the United States, and Mexico. Full disclosure: TerraX is a funder of this research, as is Green Cross.
Called “ecoSolv,” the water treatment system marketed by TerraX uses the electromagnetic fields of rare earth minerals to break down clumps of water molecules to the optimal size for plants to absorb. Field studies of irrigated crops show a 25% reduction in water use and a 50% reduction in fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and run-off. Other benefits include increased seed germination, crop uniformity, and longer shelf life after harvest.
The foliar treatment ecoAgra improves crops’ water and nutrient absorption, improving plant yield. It also protects them from drought and disease. Field tests show this leads to higher yields: of over 7% for corn, 15% for rice, and a huge impact on specialty crops: 76% greater yield for strawberries, 89% for cherry tomatoes, and 58% for potatoes.
TerraX is working on other solutions including roof coatings to keep the inside temperature of barns and chicken sheds within livable range of the animals; solar-powered ammonia generation, and testing the use of microbes to turn hog manure into organic fertilizer.
Raising awareness through global public speaking and special events has been a lifelong adventure for Lance Miller, who won Toastmaster’s 2005 World Championship. He organized and captained marathons across Europe for the International Foundation for Human Rights and Tolerance to campaign against the proliferation of laws clamping down on religious freedom.
Now he is looking for sponsors for a celebrity sky-diving event to draw global attention to sustainable solutions like 3-D printed houses. “Like the ice-bucket campaign for ALS, we could launch a worldwide movement called ‘Jump for the Planet,'” he says.
Rotary’s approach to community building
With all these networks and accomplishments, what’s the role of Rotary? “My hometown was like Brigadoon, where nothing changes – a huge sense of continuity. My grandparents’ house was built in 1860. I knew everyone,” he says. “In LA, if you don’t drive down a particular street for three months you won’t recognize it, they’ve demolished the buildings and erected new ones.
“When I moved to LA, something was missing. I visited the LA 5 [the Rotary Club of Los Angeles] for two years and joined in 2008. This made me feel part of LA and connected me to some of my best friends. As I drive around now, I know the people behind the buildings. Rotary is about building community, starting within your Club.” Rotary LA 5, founded in 1909, is the fifth oldest Rotary Club in the world and Los Angeles’ first service club.
Look for more news from our new ESRAG member in LA as he continues the quest to find innovative sustainable technologies and get them to the people who can best put them to use.
Photos: TerraX and Lance Miller
