Ford Farm To Car Movement Creates Lean, Green Transport Machines

I love it. In the past decade the farm to table movement, which brings fresh, local food directly to restaurants, took off. Then the table to farm movement caught on with farmers connecting with chefs to cook up healthy fare right on the farm.

Now there's the Farm to Car movement, something cool and healthy being concocted at Ford Motor Company by a team guided by Debbie Mielewski, Senior Technical Leader of Materials Sustainability. She and her posse of nerd rockstars are launching the Farm to Car movement, making materials from plant byproducts, including soybeans, tomatoes, coconuts and more. Since 2000, they have been working to make plant-based plastics strong enough to compete against conventional ones. Ford initiated the research as concerns rose about the environment and the oil supply.

And, I know what all you die hard greenies who think of everything are considering: Do we have enough farmland to grow plants to make fuel byproducts like plastic?

Do not worry too much. Much of the research being conducted by Ford involves using waste byproducts from existing food manufacturing. For instance, Heinz processes more than two million tons of tomatoes each year to make its best-selling product, ketchup. Researchers at Ford and Heinz are investigating how they might turn the byproducts of ketchup production —tomato peels, stems and seeds— into car parts such as wiring brackets and storage bins.

In the near future there's a good chance your car made with sustainable materials will be an EV as Ford just announced they are investing $4.5 Billion dollars to bring electrification to 40% of their vehicles by 2020.

Watch the video below to learn more about Ford's Farm to Car movement. A few years from now, when you slide into your new ride, an EV charged by your solar panel, you will literally be sitting in a field of dreams made possible by visionaries at progressive companies like Ford. They are showing us that we do not have to sacrifice style for substance on our road trip to a green future.

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