The Future of Food, Agriculture, and Aquaculture

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caltrek
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New Capital Fuels Purely Elizabeth's Next Natural Food Phase
by Christine Hall
January 31, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/31/new-c ... ood-phase/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) It’s been a 12-year journey for Purely Elizabeth founder Elizabeth Stein, and based on her plans for the company’s next phase, she is just getting started.

Stein, who began her career as a holistic nutrition counselor, started the company in 2009 after going back to school and learning about superfood ingredients and food as medicine, a concept that wasn’t as popular then as it is now.

“It felt like an opportunity in the market for products to help people,” she told TechCrunch. “What we put in our mouths is one of the most important things we can do.”

As Stein, CEO, worked with clients, she saw the need for specialized foods, like gluten-free, and what started as a side project — a blueberry muffin mix — was the catalyst for Purely Elizabeth and became her first product before moving into granola, which is what the company is known for today.

Fast-forward to today, and Purely Elizabeth, which has since added pancake/waffle mix and oatmeal, is one of the top brands in the breakfast category. Products are non-GMO and include ingredients like ancient grains, coconut sugar, probiotics and MCT oil.
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wjfox wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:19 pm UK could grow up to 40% of its own fruit and vegetables by using urban green spaces

Mon 24 Jan 2022 10.52 GMT

Britain could grow up to eight times its current production of fruit and vegetables if all available urban and under-used green space were turned to cultivation, new research has shown.

Only about 1% of urban green space is made up of allotments, but if gardens were used, along with parks, playing fields, watersides and other overlooked open spaces, the area would add up to enough to grow nearly 40% of the UK’s fresh fruit and vegetable consumption, most of which comes from overseas, according to the study.

While researchers were not seriously suggesting ploughing up parks and recreation areas, the first nationwide study of urban growing potential, by Lancaster University, demonstrated how much potential lies in areas that are often undervalued and overlooked. Using just a fraction of the nation’s scraps of urban green land for communal growing could provide a useful amount of fresh fruit and vegetables that would improve people’s diets, help vulnerable people and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/j ... een-spaces
Smaller versions of the robots used on automated farms will be available at low cost to average people, letting them effortlessly create backyard gardens. This will boost global food production and let people have greater control over where their food comes from and what it contains.
https://www.militantfuturist.com/my-fut ... iteration/
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Cover Crops Help Squash Squash their Pathogens
February 1, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/942015

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) When most of us think about crops, we think of our favorite grains and produce such as corn, tomatoes, and squash. However, after these “cash crops” are harvested, many farmers are encouraged to avoid leaving their fields bare. Instead, they plant “cover crops” to reduce erosion and help the soil retain nutrients, among other benefits. While cover crops ultimately improve the yields of cash crops through improved soil health, new research suggests that they might also protect them from disease.

Pseudomonas syringae is a common bacterial pathogen that affects an array of important agricultural crops. Infections start on the leaf surface and spread through openings such as exposed wounds and pores. Farmers typically treat diseased plants with copper solutions, but some studies suggest that recruiting beneficial microbes may prevent P. syringae infection. Thus, creating reservoirs of helpful microbes in agricultural fields could be an important strategy for preventing disease.

In a paper recently published in the Phytobiomes Journal, Rémi Maglione, Marie Ciotola, Mélanie Cadieux, Vicky Toussaint, Martin Laforest, and Steven Kembel explored cover cropping as a potential tool for cultivating a healthier, disease-suppressive “phyllosphere,” or aboveground plant microbiome. To do so, they grew P. syringae-inoculated squash in fields that were over-wintered under four different conditions: winter rye cover crop, chemically-terminated winter rye cover crop, plastic cover, and bare soil. They compared the pathogen loads on the squash plants by culturing P. syringae from their leaves. The team also characterized the microbiomes of over 2,200 leaf samples to examine how cover cropping affects phyllosphere assembly. They found that cover cropping reduced populations of P. syringae and increased the abundance of genera such as Sphingomonas and Methylobacterium, which have been used as biocontrol agents against pathogens.

"To our knowledge, our study is the first to explore the importance of the phyllosphere microbiome in the context of cover cropping practices," states Dr. Laforest. "Our results suggest that cover cropping treatments can be used to manipulate biological interactions to protect plants against pathogens." Cover crops might not only promote a healthy microbiome by providing a reservoir of helpful microbes but could also minimize the colonization of soil-dwelling pathogens by creating a physical barrier. They could also affect microbial colonization by altering local soil conditions (e.g. soil moisture and temperature).
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Ancient Corn Ancestor Genes Could Make Future Crops Better
by Fred Love
February 3, 2022

https://www.futurity.org/corn-teosinte- ... 2691252-2/

Introduction:
(Futurity) Researchers are figuring out how to look back through millennia of domestication to learn how a wild grassy plant known as teosinte developed into corn, the modern cash crop grown across the globe.

The work allows the researchers to compare genes in corn against its wild ancestor. That could help plant breeders identify advantageous traits that may have been bred out of teosinte over the centuries.

The findings in Frontiers of Plant Science detail a new biotech tool that harnesses cutting-edge techniques to produce fertile transgenic teosinte plants for the first time.

Humans began domesticating teosinte, a wild grass native to Mexico, roughly 10,000 years ago. Each teosinte plant yields only up to a dozen kernels, which are tough and contain less nutrients than modern corn. So people selected individual teosinte plants for higher yields, eventually developing new varieties with their own unique traits.

But some of the original genetic material from teosinte got lost along the way. Identifying this genetic material could help breed better corn today, or at least offer scientists clues about how to better harness the genetic diversity of corn, says first author Jacob Zobrist, a graduate student in agronomy at Iowa State University.
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UN Report: The World’s Farms Stretched to ‘a Breaking Point’
by Dana Nuccitelli
January 19, 2022

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022 ... ing-point/

Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Almost 10% of the 8 billion people on earth are already undernourished with 3 billion lacking healthy diets, and the land and water resources farmers rely on stressed to “a breaking point.” And by 2050 there will be 2 billion more mouths to feed, warns a new report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

For now, farmers have been able to boost agricultural productivity by irrigating more land and applying heavier doses of fertilizer and pesticides. But the report says these practices are not sustainable: They have eroded and degraded soil while polluting and depleting water supplies and shrinking the world’s forests. The FAO report discusses some important climate change impacts, such as changing distribution of rainfall, the suitability of land for certain crops, the spread of insects and other pests, and shorter growing seasons in regions affected by more intense droughts. While not the sole source of obstacles facing global agriculture, the report makes clear that climate change is further stressing agricultural systems and amplifying global food production challenges.

The report also offers hope that the problems are solvable: Water degradation can be reversed by turning to smart planning and coordination of sustainable farming practices and by deploying new innovative technologies. More sustainable agriculture can also help fight climate change: For instance, the report notes that wiser use of soils can help sequester some of the greenhouse gasses currently emitted by agricultural activities.

Drastic changes in climate will require regions to adjust the crops they grow. For example, the report predicts that much cereal production will probably have to move north, to Canada and northern Eurasia. Brazil and northern Africa may have a harder time growing coffee, but it may get easier in eastern Africa. A changing climate “may bring opportunities for multiple rainfed cropping, particularly in the tropics and subtropics.” And for areas “where the climate becomes marginal for current staple and niche crops, there are alternative annual and perennial tree crops, livestock, and soil and water management options available.”

The report recommends seed and germoplasm exchanges globally and among regions, and investments to develop crops that can withstand changes in temperature, salinity, wind, and evaporation.
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Being a Difference-maker is a Goal of Ocean Mist Farms’ CEO Chris Drew
by Tom Linden
January 13, 2022

https://theproducenews.com/people/being ... chris-drew

Introduction:
Chris Drew, who was named president and CEO of Ocean Mist Farms in October, joined the company in the early 2000s with high ambitions.
...
Conclusion:
Drew said consumers are looking for new ways to prepare and eat artichokes, such as grilling them, and Ocean Mist wants to help facilitate those trends. “I expect our value-added footprint will expand,” he said.

Responding to questions about an even bigger picture, Drew said California as a production area does present challenges in the regulatory arena that can make it more difficult to succeed. On the other hand, the state is unique in that it is situated like none other in which to succeed culturally with its many microclimates and other advantages. “I see California continuing to play a major role in our business. There is no other place where you can grow year-round.”

He is also aware of trends such as local farming in indoor environments. Drew said the rising cost of transportation is making producing crops on the East Coast an intriguing idea. “We need to be creative. We are certainly keeping our eye on the local produce movement.”

Drew is aware that a successful business must adapt. “Adapting to change is how we survive,” he said. For Drew, this daily adaptation is the impact he expects to make to company and industry that he has dedicated his professional life to.
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Forest, Land and Agriculture - Guidance for Land-intensive Sectors

https://sciencebasedtargets.org/sectors ... griculture

Introduction:
(Science Based Targets) Nearly 25% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, forestry and other land use. Moreover, agricultural production is expected to double by 2050, to meet the demand of the world’s growing population.

In order for companies in land-intensive sectors to have a fighting chance of avoiding catastrophic climate breakdown, we are developing guidance to have a standard method to account and set science-based targets that include land-related emissions and removals.

Download the draft Forest, Land and Agriculture Science Based Target Setting Guidance: https://sciencebasedtargets.org/resourc ... tation.pdf

If your company is in the food, agriculture and forest sectors, or you are an expert on any of these, we invite you to share feedback on the draft guidance and send it to FLAG-SBTi@wwfus.org.

The public consultation period closes on February 18, 2022.
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3D Printed Foods Enter the Kitchen
by Alla Katsnelson
February 2, 2022

https://cen.acs.org/food/food-science/3 ... hen/100/i5

Introduction:
(Chemical and Engineering News) Standard military rations are made in bulk, formulated to provide a complete packaged meal during field operations. But sometimes, soldiers need a specific nutritional fix to maintain peak performance—say, a jolt of caffeine for alertness on a mission during which sleep is scant, or a bolus of creatine to help with muscle recovery after an especially physically demanding assignment. To achieve that level of culinary nimbleness, researchers at the US Department of Defense’s Combat Feeding Directorate, which develops military rations for the US Armed Forces, are turning to an unusual appliance: a 3D printer.

In the directorate’s Food Engineering and Analysis Lab, located at a US Army facility in Natick, Massachusetts, Lauren Oleksyk and her colleagues are creating 3D-printed bars tailored to optimize performance in specific scenarios or to address the needs of individual soldiers. Printers that create such supplementary rations could one day be synced with wearable sensors that detect a person’s physiological profile and nutritional needs in real time, she says.

Three-dimensional printers deposit bits of materials—usually plastics—through a nozzle onto a surface to build preprogrammed shapes layer by layer. Manufacturers and home hobbyists alike are using them to make customized machine parts, medical implants, furniture, and even guns.

Although 3D printing has touched many industries since its invention in the mid-1980s, the devices are in their infancy when it comes to printing food. In the past decade, researchers in academia and industry have been recasting the software and hardware for sculpting plastic to printing concoctions of peanut butter and other ingredients. At the same time, they have been wrestling with how to make food that can flow through the tubes of a 3D printer be as palatable as the traditional stuff.

In a sense, 3D printing isn’t that different from other types of food manufacturing. “If you buy any packaged food at the supermarket, then you’re practically eating 3D-printed food already,” says Lynette Kucsma, cofounder and chief marketing officer at Natural Machines, which makes a food printer called Foodini. In many cases, food manufacturers already push food through machines and shape it. But what’s different about 3D printing is that the end users maintain full control of what comes out of the machine, she says.
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Agot AI gives Restaurants Computer Assist to Track Where Food Orders Go Wrong
by Christine Hall
February 11, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/11/agot- ... -go-wrong/

Intoroduction:
(TechCrunch) Artificial intelligence has infiltrated a number of industries, and the restaurant industry was one of the latest to embrace this technology, driven in main part by the global pandemic and the need to shift to online orders.

That need continues to grow. In 2021, some 60% of Americans ordered takeout or delivery at least once a week, and 31% used a third-party delivery service. Market Study Report predicts the global restaurant management software market to grow nearly 15% annually to reach $6.95 billion by 2025.

However, we’ve all had that experience where you receive your food delivery only to find the order is wrong. Agot AI is using machine learning to develop computer vision technology, initially targeting the quick-serve restaurant (QSR) industry, so those types of errors can be avoided.

The company was founded three years ago by Evan DeSantola and Alex Litzenberger to solve that operations perspective in restaurant technology, reward employee success and improve a restaurant’s customer satisfaction.

Its product confirms order accuracy in real-time for online ordering and notifies employees if an order needs a correction; for example, they forgot to add cheese or ketchup.
Image
Credit: Agot AI
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What Makes a Fruit Flavorful? Artificial Intelligence Can Help Optimize Cultivars to Match Consumer Preferences
by Marcio Resende and Harry J. Klee

https://theconversation.com/what-makes- ... ces-176491

Introduction:
(The Conversation) Which flavors and chemical compounds make a particular variety of fruit more appealing to consumers can be identified and predicted using artificial intelligence, according to our recently published study.

Flavor, defined by scientists as the interaction between aroma and taste, is chemically complex. The sugars, acids and bitter compounds in food interact with the taste receptors on our tongues to invoke taste, while volatile compounds that interact with olfactory receptors in our noses are responsible for aroma.

Breeding for flavor is a difficult task for many different reasons. For one, fruit and vegetable plant breeding programs need to improve several different traits that appeal to both producers and consumers. Creating the optimal genetic combination that covers all these traits is difficult, so breeding programs often deprioritize flavor to focus on improving disease resistance and increasing yield. Plant breeders must also evaluate hundreds to thousands of potential varieties. Testing a single sample in an objective way requires consumer panels of up to 100 people, which can be expensive and impractical to arrange.

To streamline this process, we developed an algorithm to predict how consumers will rank flavor in tomatoes and blueberries. We created a database containing all known compounds associated with flavor in all varieties of these fruits. Then, we compared this database with existing consumer panel ratings on sweetness, sourness, umami and overall flavor and preference of different varieties. By modeling how consumer ratings varied with the chemical makeup of different varieties of these fruits, this allowed us to determine which compounds most influence flavor perception.

We found that the volatile organic compounds, or chemicals that form a gas, responsible for aroma are a big part of why people like a given variety. Specifically, we estimated that 42% and 56% of the overall preference score of a variety of tomato or blueberry, respectively, was associated with aroma.
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