More domestic growers would need to transition to organic to bridge the supply gap. But Lensing concludes that given current consumption trends and the length of the required transition period, organic produce supplies will likely remain under pressure over the next three to five years.

Food companies and large retailers have increased imports to meet demand and secure supplies throughout the year. The volume of U.S. imports of selected organic specialty crop items soared by almost 800 percent from 20112013 before leveling off.

"It's quite clear the market for organic produce will continue to grow, which creates opportunities for growers," adds Lensing. "However, transitioning to organic comes at a cost and is not without risk. Steady domestic supply growth will be dependent on consistent, wide premiums that reward growers for accepting the elevated risks associated with organic production."

Despite premiums of 30 to 50 percent, the perceived risks associated with transitioning to organic are often a significant deterrent for conventional growers. Key among those risks is the absence of an established market that offers transitioning growers a premium price during the lengthy three-year transition period. Concerns about market and price sustainability, the additional labor required for organic farming and the absence of support systems such as subsidies or grants compound grower reluctance.

According to Lensing, the organic industry recognizes these challenges and is taking steps to help alleviate some of the pressures on transitioning growers.

A new partnership between the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and the USDA has been established to provide guidance to growers transitioning to organic production and is laying the foundation for a transitional organic market.

"Initiatives such as the transitional organic certification program and the formation of additional strategic partnerships should serve to encourage more domestic organic production and help address the marketing challenges created by supply shortfalls, added Lensing."

A brief video synopsis of the report, "Mind the Supply (Gap): Meeting the Growing Demand for Organic Produce" is available on the CoBank YouTube Channel. The full report is available to media upon request.

About CoBank

CoBank is a $128 billion cooperative bank serving vital industries across rural America. The bank provides loans, leases, export financing and other financial services to agribusinesses and rural power, water and communications providers in all 50 states. The bank also provides wholesale loans and other financial services to affiliated Farm Credit associations serving more than 70,000 farmers, ranchers and other rural borrowers in 23 states around the country.

CoBank is a member of the Farm Credit System, a nationwide network of banks and retail lending associations chartered to support the borrowing needs of U.S. agriculture, rural infrastructure and rural communities. Headquartered outside Denver, Colorado, CoBank serves customers from regional banking centers across the U.S. and also maintains an international representative office in Singapore.

For more information about CoBank, visit the bank's web site at http://www.cobank.com.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/surging-demand-for-organic-produce-widens-us-supply-gap-300471447.html

SOURCE CoBank

http://www.cobank.com

Read more from the original source:

Surging Demand for Organic Produce Widens U.S. Supply Gap - PR Newswire (press release)

Under the Affordable Care Act, most employers must provide women a designated, non-bathroom space for breastfeeding. Photograph: KidStock/Getty Images

There was a lactation/quiet room sign on the door and the room had been reserved for that purpose on the company calendar. So Hannah was surprised when she walked in to discover a male co-worker using the lactation room for a phone call.

I had to stand there with my sore, full boobs and explain to this dude who was mad at me for interrupting him that I needed the room to express milk to feed my kid later, said Hannah, who works at a public health policy not-for-profit and asked only to be identified by her first name.

Her story is far from unusual. Travis Kalanick, the embattled CEO of Uber, it was revealed this week, uses his companys lactation room to meditate.

Literally, it was an amazing moment last week when we were in the office and he said, I really need to go meditate in order to be in a place to make good decisions right now, Arianna Huffington, an Uber board member, told a CNBC conference. And literally [he] went into a lactation room that happened to be open because they dont have meditation rooms yet. This is part of the change coming.

Huffingtons anecdote appeared designed to promote her two current hobbyhorses: corporate wellness initiatives and her belief that Kalanick, who has been widely criticized over his management of the company, is actually a suitable CEO.. But if Huffington thought the story would boost the reputation of the male executive of a company that on Monday fired 20 people amid an investigation into allegations of widespread gender discrimination and sexual harassment, well, she was wrong.

I have walked in on an exec having sex with an intern in the lactation room

Lactation rooms, for the uninitiated, are private rooms where nursing mothers can pump breast milk, preferably with comfortable seating, a refrigerator, a lock on the door and electrical outlets. While once new mothers were forced to huddle in a bathroom stall, the Affordable Care Act requires most employers to provide a designated, non-bathroom space.

But not all co-workers see it that way. I have walked in on an exec having sex with an intern in the lactation room, said one women working in tech.

Another woman, who also works in the tech industry, said that at her former company she was asked to pump in the server room. It was only after a male co-worker walked in on her (Thankfully, I was facing the wall, she said) that the company made arrangements for her to pump in a real room with a lock on the door.

A third woman, who worked for what she described as a well-funded food startup with a social justice mission, said that her CEO regularly used the lactation room to make phone calls or take naps.

I had to wake him numerous times, which was humiliating, she said. Once he told me: I need another 15 minutes.

While the CEO would laugh about his behavior, approaching her later to say Dont hate me! or I owe you one!, the woman said that his actions had a serious impact on her ability to continue breastfeeding her second child.

I didnt pump very long after I went back [to work]. I actually just couldnt produce enough for my baby, and I know it was because of the stress because I never had that issue with my first, she said. I am sad I wont ever get that back.

For companies hoping to attract and retrain female workers, a well-kitted out lactation room can be a selling point. When Elle canvassed major US employers in 2016, companies including Google, Facebook and IBM shared photos and details of their accommodations, which ranged from the utilitarian to the luxurious.

Google and Facebook require women to book the spaces in advance, then use their badges to enter, according to Elle. But at many companies, it seems the era of open office plans has turned the rooms into a coveted sanctuary, leaving the women who need them in an awkward situation.

A facilities manager for an advertising company changed the signage on the lactation room from privacy room to mothering room because, he said: A guy wouldnt stop using it to place long angry phone calls hammering out his ugly divorce/custody battle.

Frustratingly to the manager, the company actually had designated rooms for placing phone calls. The lactation room was just closer to his desk, he said.

It is not only men who abuse the lactation room. Writer and editor Jessica Wakeman once worked with a female editor who had at least two incidents with the company lactation room.

She was found by another nursing mom sitting down, her makeup bag and a mirror spread out all over the desk, putting on makeup in the middle of the workday, Wakeman said.

I absolutely abuse the lactation room, confesses another woman. I abused the lactation room so much they renamed it the quiet room.

Heather Kelly, a tech reporter for CNN, proposed one solution for taking back the lactation room.

If I ever found some dude meditating in the mothers room, she tweeted in response to the Kalanick story, I would blind him with my milk.

After all, Chris Rock taught us, No matter what a stripper tells you, theres no sex in the champagne room. And no matter what Arianna Huffington says, there should be no meditation in the lactation room.

Continue reading here:

Sex, naps and meditation: men caught misusing workplace breastfeeding rooms - The Guardian

(This originally appeared in Pagan NUUS, Vol. 2 #2, Litha/Lammas 1988, and is redistributed by permission of the author who goes by Mountainheart.)

mountainheartnhand, photo by Mllownious ogo, (cc) 2013.

Welcome to our first tribal gathering. We have come together to form a community of kindred spirits to make interconnections and to celebrate our connectedness with the Earth and all her life of which we are a part.

We gather together to help heal ourselves from the sickness of separation from Mother Earth an unnatural separation which makes her sick also. We gather to heal ourselves, our Earth.

We gather to rediscover our tribal roots and to celebrate the Dance of Life weare dancers who have perhaps forgotten the steps that we knew as children but we crave the dance in our deepest beings.

We join to feel our hearts beat to know they are part of the pulse of the Earth.

We gather together to share our breaths to breath the air that is the breath of the Earth and to create the breath of the Earth.

We gather together to share the warmth of the Fire of Life to feel the tidal rhythms of oceanic blood coursing through our veins.

We join each other to affirm the goodness the sacredness of our bodies, and to celebrate our natural, good, wildness to shed our unnatural estrangement from ourselves and wilderness.

We come together to nuture each other as we grow and flourish.

In joining together to share and celebrate, groups like this usually create a special place a sacred space or circle in which its OK to be a child. A temporary place of reconnection with Mother Earth, the Great Spirit, the Goddess, the God of the Dance, the Spirits of the mountains and rivers and rocks, the Muses, the Elements a place for the suspension of disbelief. Usually these forces, beings, feelings, aspects, spirits, archetypes, symbols are invited to join us in the circle.

We meet in a circle and look into each others faces because thats where we find God in each other, in ourselves. A circle is a magic place where we can rediscover the enchantment of childhood. A sacred and joyful space where we are free to explore our deepest feelings without fear of ridicule. Where we can express joy, sorrow, fear, and immanent strength. Where we can express the express the connectedness with each other and with all of life. Where we can play. Where we can express wonder at the great mystery of ourselves, the cosmos, the cycles of being, beginnings from endings, life and death. We express these things through song, dance, poetry, meditation, chant, symbolic ritual or any other creative means. Or by just being.

Thank you for being here. Lets celebrate our coming together, our creation of a new tribe.

Continued here:

A Meditation - Patheos (blog)

You all remember that 1973 rock classic by Brownsville Station, right?

Well, Ubers bad-boy chief executive Travis Kalanick has added his own version:

Call it Meditatin in the Lactation Room.

Arianna Huffington, the journo-celeb and Uber board member whos helping the San Francisco-based ride-hailing giant lower the testosterone level of its corporate culture, has some exciting news to share:

And since Ubers headquarters dont yet have quelle horreur! a designated meditation room, the boss is getting all mindful in a lactation room. Thats right: a room where breastfeeding moms can pump breast milk for their babies.

Literally, it was an amazing moment last week when we were in the office and he said, I really need to go meditate in order to be in a place to make good decisions right now,' Huffington told a crowd this week at the iCONIC conference in New York City.And literally [he] went into a lactation room that happened to be open, because they dont have meditation rooms yet. This is part of the change coming.

In other words, not only can Uber employees look forward to having meditation rooms in the future, but they can still use the lactation rooms as they wish, unless, of course, the boss is in there meditating, which he may well be.

Literally, said Huffington, Travis returned and you could see the change in the way he was and the way he could process making decisions.

Kalanicks embrace of the meditation gospel, so to speak, should please Huffington immensely, since her own startup, Thrive Global, is all about promoting health and wellness in the workplace and beyond.

Hopefully, a mellower CEO will translate into a mellower company, as opposed to the one that earlier this week had to fire 20 employees after an internal investigation into complaints around discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying and retaliation.

I believe every company soon is going to have a meditation slash nap room, said Huffington. They are going to be as common as conference rooms.

Or, for that matter, lactation rooms.

Read the original:

Uber CEO takes up meditation and guess where he does it? - The Mercury News

Zakharov Evgeniy/adobe.com/AP

In the 15 years since she made her National Book Award-winning debut with Three Junes, Julia Glass has written a series of novels notable for their intricately braided narratives, dry wit, and generous embrace of flawed, fallible characters. Those gifts are on pleasing display again in A House Among the Trees, a lovely meditation on the mysteries of creativity and its costs, not just to creators, but to those who surround them. The artist in question here is Mort Lear, a famous childrens book author whose accidental death sparks a swirl of maneuvers and memories that ultimately lead to a fraught weekend of revelations and reconciliations.

Always deft with plotting, Glass builds to that weekend from her first sentence, Today, the actor arrives. Morty agreed to this visit, we learn, shortly before his fatal fall from the pitched roof of his Connecticut home. He was flattered that Oscar-winning movie star Nicholas Greene had been cast to play him in a biopic, but its just one more thing to deal with for Mortys longtime, live-in assistant, Tomasina Daulair. Tommy is reeling from the unwelcome discovery that Morty named her his heir and literary executor, assigning her a series of detailed responsibilities as variously remote from her experience as foraging for mushrooms or Olympic diving. The most unpleasant of these will be informing a New York museum happily anticipating the bequest of Mortys artwork, letters, and archives that he has reneged on that promise in his will.

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With six densely packed but lucid pages of exposition, Glass sets the scene for all that follows and dangles tantalizing hints of disclosures yet to come, such as the reason for Mortys vindictive change to his will. Its a pleasure to be in the hands of a consummate storyteller, and Glasss mastery is particularly evident in her skillful use of Mortys obvious but never overbearing resemblance to the late Maurice Sendak. Yes, theyre both crotchety gay men from Brooklyn (by way of Tucson in Mortys case) who moved to Connecticut after establishing their reputations with controversial books once deemed too scary and dark for kids. From this factual scaffolding Glass constructs a fully imagined fictional figure. The traumas that inform Mortys art are quite different from those Sendak acknowledged to his biographer; more importantly, they resonate with the experiences of other characters as three-dimensional and engaging as he is.

Tommy stands at the center of this varied portrait gallery, wondering whether she gave up too much to spend 25 years as Mortys wife without the sex. This is the bitter assessment of her estranged brother Dani, still resentful that as a boy he was the unwitting model for the protagonist of the book that launched Lear like a NASA space shot. (Those familiar with Sendaks work will enjoy the clever allusions to Where the Wild Things Are in her descriptions of Mortys Colorquake.)

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The Globe's top picks for what to see and do each weekend, in Boston and beyond.

Meredith Galarza, director of the jilted museum, also feels betrayed by Morty; his flirtatious letters and their bibulous lunches gave no hint of the rage he felt when she told him his art would be sharing space with the work of a younger, hipper childrens author in the museums expensive new building in trendy post-industrial Brooklyn.

Only Greene feels no ambivalence or animosity toward Morty; he understands from his own experience that the pursuit of art involves a certain level of selfishness requiring those around you to adapt or get out of your way. That may be why Morty before his death confided to Nick a startling truth about his childhood even more twisted than the story he publicly told of abuse by an older man.

It takes some plot manipulation to get Meredith and Dani in a car headed to Connecticut on the weekend Nick is visiting, but most readers will accept it. Glass has created such rich back stories for these appealing characters and interwoven them so compellingly that we want to see them work things out together. Putting all four in the same house at the same time may not be entirely plausible, but it feels artistically right. The weekend brings one more big reveal (and a charmingly unlikely tryst), but its central events are the quiet moments of reckoning between people who have learned to forgive each other and themselves. Avoiding clichs about tortured, exploitative genius, Glass crafts a thoughtful, warm-hearted tale about the choices each of us makes, with consequences inevitably both good and bad.

A HOUSE AMONG THE TREES

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By Julia Glass

Pantheon, 368 pp., $27.95

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Selfish Sendak-like author's death spawns meditation on art and costs it exacts - The Boston Globe

Can you cure a stiff neck through meditation? The answer lies in the book Healing the Future The Journey Within, by Deepak Kashyap.

In 1999, I was in Goa, when I suffered from frozen shoulder and a stiff neck. Though I had been practising yoga and meditation, I couldnt move a limb in that condition. And then I wondered if meditation could heal my muscles? Soon, I slipped into a meditative state and remained that way for a good 90 minutes. After a couple of hours, I was perfectly fine, recollects Kashyap, referring to the first chapter, titled The Goa Miracle.

A civil servant by profession, Kashyap was struck by the idea of writing a book when he saw a conversation between an expert and a yoga enthusiast on TV. I once saw a foreigner ask a so-called yoga guru if its okay to meditate for a longer duration on one specific day. The guru compared meditation and hunger, and said, If you cant eat too much on one day and starve another day, then how can you do the same with meditation? To me, that reply was illogical, considering regularity is desirable but intensity only comes through practising meditation over extended periods of time, explains Kashyap.

The cover of the book Healing the Future The Journey Within.

Kashyap says that he was always interested in the occult sciences, and this interest was sharpened after meeting his guru. He first wrote Healing the Future 10 years ago, and now he has updated the book. I thought its important to write to bridge the gap between spiritual phenomena and the rational mind, he says.

His first-hand experiences, such as the Goa incident, have shaped this book. The actual writing of the book took seven to eight months, but before that it required a lot of preparation. One of the challenges was to experience everything myself before writing, he says.

The result is a self-help guide that can enlighten one about the magic of meditation, the power of reiki, and the connection between the spiritual and the practical.

See original here:

Healing the Future: The wonder of meditation, discovered though a self-help book - Hindustan Times

FITNESS

Divine Joy Yoga Rincon United Church of Christ, 122 N. Craycroft Road. Visit divinejoyyoga.com to see all locations. 9-10:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. $6. 808-9383.

Yoga in the Buff Movement Culture, 435 E. Ninth St. Clothing optional co-ed. 4-5 p.m. Thursdays. $5. 250-2331.

Hot Yoga Rooted, 1600 N. Tucson Blvd. Full body flow. 6:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. $10. 1-435-671-9033.

Vinyasa Yoga Tucson Chiropractic Center, 570 N. Columbus Blvd. Strengthen, stretch and tone. 8-9 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. $5. 1-435-671-9033.

Tai Chi Balance Sunrise Chapel, 8421 E. Wrightstown Road. Mondays: Tai Chi basics; Thursdays: yang 10 for beginners. 11 a.m.-noon. Mondays and Thursdays. $10; $30 a month. 296-9212.

Tai Chi for Health Resurrection Lutheran Church, 11575 N. First Ave, Oro Valley. Improve balance, mental clarity, relieve pain and create an overall feeling of well-being through natural breathing and slow, gentle, meditative body movements. $10 per class; $60 for nine weeks. 1-2 p.m. Mondays. $60. 780-6751.

Tai Chi for Health St. Francis in the Foothills, 4625 E. River Road. Safe, effective and fun way to improve balance, mental clarity, relieve pain and create an overall feeling of well-being. 9-10 a.m. Tuesdays. $10 per class; $60 for nine weeks. 780-6751.

Seated Tai Chi for Health Ellie Towne Flowing Wells Community Center, 1660 W. Ruthrauff Road. For those who want to improve their health but cant stand to exercise. 1-2 p.m. Wednesdays. $24 for four classes. 465-2890.

Martial arts/meditation and more

Taekwondo Wellness Intuition Wellness Center, 5675 N. Oracle Road Suite 3101. Learn traditional Taekwondo, philosophy and core principles, self-care, stress management, coping skills, social skills and mindfulness meditation. 4:15 p.m class for ages 7-12; 5:15 p.m. for ages 12 and up. 4:15 and 5:15 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. $20. 333-3320.

Capoeira for Kids Studio Ax, 2928 E. Broadway. Children learn the basics of Tucson Capoeira Martial Arts through games and exercises. Ages 5-12. 4:30-5:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. 990-1820.

Capoeira for Kids Studio Ax. Learn the basics of Tucson Capoeira Martial Arts through games and exercises. Ages 5-12. 5:30-6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Intro to Capoeira Studio Ax. Works the whole body, but also the mind. 7-8:15 p.m. Monday, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Brewery Bootcamp Dragoon Brewing Co., 1859 W. Grant Road. Bring a sweat towel, bottle of water and a mat or beach towel for something to lay on. Includes your first beer. Ages 21 and up. Registration opens at 10:45 a.m. 11 a.m.-noon. June 18. $10. 465-6895.

Kids Capoeira Movement Culture. Develop: balance, motor coordination, speed and strength. Wear loose pants/sweat pants and t-shirt, training will be in bare feet or martial-art/dance shoes. 4:30-5:30 p.m. Mondays. $10.

Learn to Meditate Workshop Kadampa Meditation Center, 5326 E. Pima St. Beginners. 6:30-8 p.m. June 19. $10. 441-1617.

Tucson Capoeira Beginners Class Movement Culture. Dance, acrobatics and music. 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesdays. $15.

Tucson Tuesday Laughter Yoga Quaker Meeting House, 931 N. Fifth Ave. To promote peace and healing. 6-7 p.m. Tuesdays. 490-5500.

Tucson Capoeira intro class Movement Culture. Introduction to the four core expressions of Capoeira: Movement, music, philosophy, and history. 5:30-7 p.m. Mondays.

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Tucson yoga, Tai Chi, martial arts, meditation and more June 15-23 - Arizona Daily Star

It looks like a flower with unfurling petals.

The striking structure nearing completion on the shore near Kootenay Bay is the Yasodhara Ashrams new temple, which will replace the one destroyed in a fire three years ago. Its pure white, with multiple curved wings that spiral towards the sky.

Im very ecstatic. Its been a long process, the ashrams Swami Lalitananda told the Star.

We see this new temple coming up and its inspiring because its so unique and beautiful, and we dont know at each stage how it will unfold. Everybody here is pretty enthusiastic.

Its been almost magical.

To go from from having nothing there to seeing these amazing curved pieces stacked on top of each other, its been a really amazing time for us.

Yasodhara was hoping to have opened their temple doors by now, but construction delays have them now aiming for a public grand opening on Aug. 5. But before that, Lalitanada would like to welcome the community to their annual strawberry social on June 24 from 1 to 4 p.m., during which people can get a sneak preview temple tour.

Moving into a new phase

Lalitananda is effusive about the construction work being done by Patkau Architects, an elite team out of Vancouver who have earned recognition globally for their innovative designs. They took it upon themselves to make the ambitious goal of assembling an entire building out of curved forms.

We were attracted to them because they can work with curved forms. Our old temple was a dome, so we wanted a feeling that it was developing, or moving into its next phase, opening more.

While the old one was beautiful and traditional, this one will be innovative and organic.

Its like this unfolding, beautiful flower and everybody whos been working on it calls each of the pieces petals. Its very feminine, which is appropriate because our lineage is feminine we pass our teachings down through women.

Shes pleased with the work Spearhead Timberworks has been doing too.

We were really happy to find this local Nelson company capable of creating the complex prefabricated wood components that create the shell of the temple, and that their advanced digital technology allowed them to successfully collaborate with Patkau.

She noted almost all of their contractors were from the region.

Also one of our goals in construction was to make the temple fit with our environmental initiatives. So the building will be energy efficient, with geothermal and photovoltaics for heat, with superior insulation and triple glazing.

A path of self-inquiry

Lalitananda first started attending the ashram in 1979, working her way over the years up to her current position as president of the organization. She was drawn to it because she wanted to challenge herself to think deeply and not follow old patterns.

What I liked from the beginning is that its a path of self-inquiry, so nobody was telling me what I needed to think. It seemed like a way of expanding my thinking and awareness without a dogma, she said.

But theres also something about the devotional part, and it wasnt a specific religion it was a path of calming my mind and using practices to experience different levels of mind or consciousness. I was becoming more myself, and realizing the potential of who I could be.

And she thinks the physical structure of the temple itself could aid in the spiritual process. There was some thought put into the number of entrances in the temple eight all that lead to the same destination. Lalitananda said this demonstrates how people of different faiths and backgrounds can come into a beautiful, transcendent place of light together.

We want it to be a magnet for people who need some hope, and a place where people can go into the space and look both inward and outward, because its so nestled in nature and the beauty of the forest around it.

The temple will be used for services, devotional practice, meditation and retreats. Theyre also looking to open it up to more cultural events, such as Slava Doval and her schools dance performance at the Aug. 5 opening.

Its been an emotional slog to get here.

The other temple had been there for 20 years, so for me and the whole community a lot of this has been about going through loss. The decision to build it differently, which some people liked and some people werent sure about, was something that helped us to learn together.

She lives right next to it, and loves the view.

Im looking out the window at it right now, and it is so beautiful.

Read more here:

Yasodhara Ashram ecstatic about rebuilt temple - Nelson Star

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) TSX-V-listed juniors Commerce Resources and Ucore Rare Metals has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) outlining the integration of feedstock from Commerces Ashram project, in Quebec, with Ucores rare earths separation facility and strategic metals complex (SMC).

Under the terms of the MoU, Commerce will provide mixed rare earth carbonate concentrate mined from the Ashram deposit to perform bench and pilot-scale testing of the metallurgy and metals separation metrics of the prospective feedstock.

The bench work will establish a definitive assessment of the suitability of the Ashram concentrate as potential feedstock for the SMC, with a view to a subsequent long-term supply partnership and offtake relationship.

Testwork will be conducted by IBC Advanced Technologies of American Fork, Utah, with pilot-scale testwork expected to take place at the recently completed SuperLig-One Molecular Recognition Technology (MRT) pilot facility in Vineyard, Utah.

This is a significant development partnership for both Ucore and Commerce. Commerce has undertaken extensive research and testing resulting in a high-quality and high-grade mineral concentrate that will allow for cost-effective processing to our ideal feedstock and, therefore, looks to be a very promising candidate for processing via a MRT separation circuit, commented Ucore president and CEO Jim McKenzie in a news release on Monday.

The Ashram deposit has significant tonnage, good grade, hosts a well-balanced rare earth element (REE) distribution with an enrichment in the magnet feed REEs, and perhaps most importantly, is highly accessible, McKenzie said.

In combination with the SMC, Ashram promises to be a key link in a self-contained North American REE supply chain.

Commerce is well advanced with its metallurgical testing and flowsheet design to produce the Ashram concentrate, incorporating a conventional approach used by current and past rare earth producers. This involves an initial phase of beneficiation to produce a high-grade mineral concentrate of more than 45% rare earth oxides and at high recovery at about 75%, followed by a hydrometallurgical phase that further processes the mineral concentrate through to a mixed rare earth carbonate product suitable for separation. The Ashram metallurgical testwork and pilot plant is located and operated at Hazen Research in Golden, Colorado.

Ucore is now engaged in the detailed engineering and planning of the SMC rare earth separation facility, a joint venture with IBC. The SMC will use SuperLig MRT to separate the REEs, capitalising on advanced pilot-phase testing of the SuperLig-One pilot platform.

The SMC is being designed and engineered as a modular facility, capable of accepting feedstock from varying supply sources and a range of high-quality concentrates. Ucore expects to release a comprehensive design and build schedule for the SMC facility, including an economic analysis of supply sources, in the coming months.

With prospective supply sources located in Quebec, Alaska and the south-eastern US, the selection of the location of the SMC is contingent upon incentives and logistical considerations from multiple competing jurisdictions.

Originally posted here:

Commerce, Ucore ink MoU for rare earths development partnership - Creamer Media's Mining Weekly

To say that dining together is an importantaspect of our social lives is an understatement. The moment were born, food is associated with human connection, from the bond we form with the family members who feed us, to our first experience with eating lunch with friends at school, and to all the times we spend an evening with friends gathered around the dinner table at a restaurant. If youre cutting back on or avoiding meat and dairy, you may run into some challenges in terms of what were going to eat if the restaurant we choose to go to doesnt happen to be vegan. For example, the typical plant-based options at a steakhouse are almost always French fries and a salad and when it comes to the salad, you might have to inform your server that youll take your bowl of iceberg lettuce without the cheese and meat. But still, wego, because of the social experience.

At BOA, a steakhouse in Santa Monica, California, new plant-based options to the menu will ensure that nobody, whether you are a meat-eater, vegan, vegetarian, or flexitarian will walk away feeling unsatisfied. Simply put, theyre the type of offerings that you would expect to find at swanky vegan restaurants such as Isa Chandra Moskowitzs Modern Love or Pamela Elizabeths Blossom.

BOAs plant-based options show that even if a restaurant is a steakhouse, the vegan options need not be limited to fries and salad, a dish that could easily be ordered at any other restaurant. Instead, they are showing their customers that you can create innovative, flavorful, and crave-worthy dishes that truly make their menu stand out from other steakhouses.

According toNPR social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam, eating the same food as your dining companion increases trust and cooperation.With options like these, BOA will likely attract not only more customers with plant-based preferences than ever before, but also customers who may have never ordered plant-based. We hope that more meat-centric restaurants follow BOAs example. Food, especially delicious food, will always be an important part of socializing and their new menu options will no doubt bring people together.

If you love cooking plant-based foods, we highly recommend checking out the Food Monster App, which is available for bothAndroid and iPhone. With over 8,000 vegan recipes (and over 10 new recipes added daily), youre going to find something you love!

Lead image source: BOA/Facebook

More here:

This Steakhouse in LA Has Better Vegan Food Than Anything You've Ever Tried - One Green Planet