A vegetable grower outstanding in his field could actually benefit from new technology that lets consumers with cell phones scan a bar code at a supermarket produce section and find out exactly where a bag of spinach came from. And by "exactly," I mean which farmer and which field.

Two new companies, YottaMark of Redwood City, California, and FoodLogiq of Durham, North Carolina, have developed sophisticated software for tracing the origin and freshness of food.

YottaMark's traceability label has been applied to almost a billion food items so far, and the company has found that, other factors - price, for example - being equal, consumers would choose a traceable item over an untraceable one by a factor of eight to one.

There's a story in last week's edition of The Economist, which you can read here http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14627082

A one-acre solar panel - aka a field of grass - is a healthy profit center if it is carefully managed to produce animal products. At the second annual Graze-a-Palooza in Canastota, New York, experienced graziers, newbies and wannabes gathered to talk about the practice and philosophy of grazing. It was an interesting convening of common interests reported on by Lancaster Farming central New York correspondent Maegan Crandall. One of the presenters was the Grass Whispered himself, Troy Bishopp, who often shares his thoughts with our readers. Maegan's story in is the Ag Innovations section of our current edition.

Farmers markets are so cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnplN3jPLKw