The Future of Food, Agriculture, and Aquaculture

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caltrek
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The Future of Food, Agriculture, and Aquaculture

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"Blue" Food May be a Way to Feed More People
by Sonia Fernandez
September 17, 2021

https://www.futurity.org/blue-foods-aqu ... 2628512-2/

Introduction:
(Futurity) Five peer-reviewed papers in the journal Nature (see link provided below this quote box) highlight the opportunities to leverage the vast diversity of blue foods in the coming decades to address malnutrition, lower the environmental footprint of the food system, and provide livelihoods.

People around the world eat more than 2,500 species or species groups of fish, shellfish, aquatic plants, and algae. Together, these foods provide livelihoods and incomes for more than 100 million and sustenance for one billion.

“People are trying to make more informed choices about the food they eat, in particular the environmental footprint of their food,” says Ben Halpern, a marine ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, who with colleagues reports findings in three papers on the environmental sustainability of aquatic foods, the potential for the growth of small-scale producers, and the climate risks that face aquatic food systems.

“For the first time we pulled together data from hundreds of studies on a wide range of seafood species to help answer that question. Blue foods stack up really well overall and provide a great option for sustainable food.”

The research projects that global demand for blue foods will roughly double by 2050 and will be met primarily through increased aquaculture production rather than by capture fisheries.
https://www.nature.com/collections/fijabaiach

Introduction:
(Nature) Aquatic foods are an important component of many food systems, yet have received little attention in food policy discourse. This collection (see link above this quote box) - the result of a collaboration between The Blue Food* Assessment and the Nature journals - shines a light on the contribution that aquatic foods can make to future food systems and the challenges that need to be tackled if these contributions are to be realized.

The Blue Food Assessment, a collaboration between the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University and Stanford University in partnership with EAT, brings together over 100 researchers to explore the role that aquatic foods can play in building healthy, sustainable and equitable food systems. Here, Nature and the Nature journals present some of the findings along with comment and opinion pieces on the project.
*https://bluefood.earth/

Here is a link and an abstract for one of the Nature articles:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03917-1
(Nature) Despite contributing to healthy diets for billions of people, aquatic foods are often undervalued as a nutritional solution because their diversity is often reduced to the protein and energy value of a single food type (‘seafood’ or ‘fish’)1,2,3,4. Here we create a cohesive model that unites terrestrial foods with nearly 3,000 taxa of aquatic foods to understand the future impact of aquatic foods on human nutrition. We project two plausible futures to 2030: a baseline scenario with moderate growth in aquatic animal-source food (AASF) production, and a high-production scenario with a 15-million-tonne increased supply of AASFs over the business-as-usual scenario in 2030, driven largely by investment and innovation in aquaculture production. By comparing changes in AASF consumption between the scenarios, we elucidate geographic and demographic vulnerabilities and estimate health impacts from diet-related causes. Globally, we find that a high-production scenario will decrease AASF prices by 26% and increase their consumption, thereby reducing the consumption of red and processed meats that can lead to diet-related non-communicable diseases5,6 while also preventing approximately 166 million cases of inadequate micronutrient intake. This finding provides a broad evidentiary basis for policy makers and development stakeholders to capitalize on the potential of aquatic foods to reduce food and nutrition insecurity and tackle malnutrition in all its forms.
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caltrek
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Reconciling Profit and Morality
Jim Hightower
September 22, 2021

https://otherwords.org/reconciling-profit-and-morality/

Introduction:
(Other Words) Is “corporate ethics” an oxymoron? Do you have to be a jerk to be a successful CEO? Is exploitation the only path to profit?

The good news is that many companies, big and small, in the food economy are blazing a different path through Wall Street’s jungle of greed, demonstrating that money and morality can be compatible.

Texas supermarket chain HEB, for example, has drawn an intensely loyal customer base by investing in good wages and benefits for employees, showing up in such emergencies as pandemics, hurricanes, freezes, etc. to give essential supplies and hands-on help, and being an involved and supportive neighbor to the hundreds of unique communities it serves.

Elsewhere, Maine Grains is “relocalizing” the business of milling grain by working with local farmers who’d been abandoned by global grain marketers like Ardent and Gold Medal. They’re producing nutrient-rich flours from heritage grains, boosting the local economy in the process.

Then there’s Bob’s Red Mill, which also artfully mills its products from diverse, natural grains — and it’s 100 percent employee-owned.
At the end of the article, the reader is referred to the following web site to learn more about B Corporations: https://bcorporation.net/
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New Endowed Academic Chair Will Lead Baylor in Research to End Hunger
by Mark Wingfield
September 24, 2021

https://baptistnews.com/article/new-end ... nd-hunger/

Introduction:
(Baptist News Global) A $1.5 million gift will place a Baptist university among a select set of U.S. schools conducting scholarly research and engaging students on the topic of food security.

Baylor University in Waco, Texas, announced the gift from Jim and Tammy Snee of Austin, Minn., which will establish an endowed faculty chair to lead research efforts addressing food security through the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty. That major gift will be matched by funds available through the Baylor Academic Challenge, creating a total initial endowment of $3 million.

This is the 14th new academic chair established through the Baylor Academic Challenge, and it is likely the most unique. While other academics study quantum physics and ancient languages, this position will work toward an extremely practical goal: Ending hunger.

“We are truly grateful for Jim and Tammy Snee and for their family’s commitment to ending hunger in the world,” said Baylor President Linda A. Livingstone. “We are grateful that they are entrusting Baylor and the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty to lead this incredibly important and urgent effort to find solutions and best practices to address hunger at home and abroad.”

Most other U.S. universities with academic programs related to food security are public schools, often schools with historic ties to agriculture. Baylor approaches the subject not from an agriculture background — it was founded as a liberal arts school — but as a matter of social and economic justice.
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Re: The Future of Food, Agriculture, and Aquaculture

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I made some wheat meat (seitan), and used some of the remaining starch to make plant based bacon. and I gotta tell you they are so much more labor intensive, for poor results that it really makes me think getting everybody to go plant based is an unrealistic pipe dream. That even if you can find ways around things like gluten intolerance, soy and nut allergies etc. and lets not even mention that ending the meat industry would mean an excess of livestock and once they 'go away' there will likely be ecosystem consequences to loss of all those other animals. (much like farming monocultures seemed like the efficient choice but ends up far less sustainable than we expected).
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For Family Farms, Most Income Comes Far Afield
by Amanda Perez Pintado
October 14, 2021

https://investigatemidwest.org/2021/10/ ... ar-afield/

Introduction:
(Investigate Midwest) Off-farm income contributed an average of 82% of total income for family farms in 2019, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis.

Almost all farm households in 2019 derived some income from off-farm sources, such as pensions, investment income, or wages and salary from an off-farm job. But small family farms — defined in this instance as having income less than $350,000 — depended on it the most.

About half of U.S. farms, according to the USDA, are considered very small, with annual farm sales under $10,000. Small-scale operators of these farms tend to rely on off-farm sources for most of their household income.

In small “off-farm occupation” farms, where the operator reports a main occupation that’s not farming, off-farm sources of income in 2019 made up 84% of all earnings.

In contrast, “very large” farms, with an annual gross cash farm income of $5 million or more, earned only 7% of their total income from off-farm sources in 2019.
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Re: The Future of Food, Agriculture, and Aquaculture

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getting information about food is just a fluster cluck these days. In part due to the distance between us an basic ingredients, but also because there is so much pop nutritional science bs out there:
searching the web: I only want one part of this commercially made combine and eat food product for something I'm doing, I can use the other parts in something else. what's the nutritional data for the individual packets?
web results: the combined food is a processed food with higher levels of sodium than steamed broccoli.
me: no shit, it's a ready to eat food item largely made from processed wheat. what's the data for just this third of it?
web result: It doesn't have any b12 or vitamin c.
me: it's processed wheat, of course it doesn't. What I need to know is...
Web: too much sodium could result in heart disease.
Me: I'm trying to figure out if this is a viable ingrediant for a meat and vegetable dish that needs a little something else to tie it togeth...
web: refined carbohydrates are linked to metabolyc syndrome in women ages ...
Me: you know what, f*ck it, I don't care anymore. 110 or so calories of carbs, 30 of fat and some salt to a meal seems about right and brings some texture, carries the sauce, adds a bit of volume, seems like it'll work.
the web: it'll kill you gradually over years.
Me: shut up internet, you're being moronic.
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caltrek
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In addition to "pop nutritional science bs" there is also the issue of accuracy in food advertising and labeling.

Ninth Circuit Revives False Advertising Suit Over Chicken
by Nate MacKay
October 26, 2021

https://www.courthousenews.com/ninth-ci ... r-chicken/

Introduction:
(Courthouse News) — Food processing giant Conagra will return to federal court after the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that class action claims of false advertising against the company are not preempted.

Consumer Robert Cohen sued Conagra claiming that the labels advertising “100% natural white meat chicken” mislead purchasers about three synthetic ingredients in the chicken products. A federal judge in the Central District of California dismissed the claims finding the label regulations set by the Poultry Products Inspection Act preempted the suit.

Cohen claims the labels were not properly reviewed and approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), contending that Conagra bypassed the FSIS approval by utilizing a more generic review regime. The Ninth Circuit agreed there is insufficient evidence that the label received the green light from federal regulators.

“The only evidence before us is the label itself — there are no affidavits or other documentary evidence showing that the label was submitted to and approved by FSIS,” U.S. Circuit Judge Mark Bennett, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote for the panel.

"On behalf of poultry product purchasers, we’re thrilled that this class action is returning to district court," Gretchen Elsner, the lawyer representing Cohen and other class action members, said in an interview. "The Ninth Circuit correctly recognized that a company cannot just assert that its label was approved and then argue that it is entitled to preemption. Instead, trial courts need to evaluate the evidence."
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Team Uses Artificial Intelligence to Develop Ultimate Chickpea
by Margaret Puls
November 12, 2021

https://www.futurity.org/chickpeas-arti ... s-2656432/

Introduction:
(Futurity) Using artificial intelligence, researchers have developed a genetic model for the “ultimate” chickpea, with the potential to lift crop yields by up to 12%

Researchers genetically mapped thousands of chickpea varieties, and then used this information to identify the most valuable gene combinations using artificial intelligence (AI).

Researchers wanted to to develop a “haplotype” genomic prediction crop breeding strategy, for enhanced performance for seed weight.

“Most crop species only have a few varieties sequenced, so it was a massive undertaking by the international team to analyze more than 3,000 cultivated and wild varieties,” says Ben Hayes, professor at the University of Queensland
.…
“We identified 1,582 novel genes and established the pan-genome of chickpea, which will serve as a foundation for breeding superior chickpea varieties with enhanced yield, higher resistance to drought, heat, and diseases,” says Rajeev Varshney from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, India. Varshney is lead author of the paper in Nature.
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Re: The Future of Food, Agriculture, and Aquaculture

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^^^Interesting.

What I came here to post:

Investors Bet that Sweetgreen Will Make Sweet Amounts of Green
by Alex Wilhelm
November 18, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/18/inves ... -of-green/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) U.S. fast-casual salad chain Sweetgreen priced its IPO at $28 per share yesterday. Selling 13 million shares in its IPO, the company’s early gross proceeds from the transaction total $364 million, before taking shares reserved for its underwriting banks into account.

For Sweetgreen, the pricing is a win. The company initially expected to price between $23 and $25 per share, meaning that it sold shares at a higher price than it had anticipated. And Sweetgreen sold 500,000 more shares in its IPO than its final S-1/A filing indicated.

Given that investors made a larger, more expensive bet on Sweetgreen than we might have anticipated, there’s work to do.

Let’s calculate the company’s IPO valuation, using both simple and fully diluted share counts. Then we’ll dig into Sweetgreen’s final IPO revenue multiple to understand how investors are truly valuing the company. From there, we’ll see if the company’s valuation squares up with what we’ve seen from other recent technology-enabled IPOs.

Why are we paying attention to Sweetgreen? Because it started raising external capital in the mid-aughts and kept at it through a Series I in 2019. More simply, a host of private investors, including venture capitalists, bet on Sweetgreen. So, we care.
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