The Future of Food, Agriculture, and Aquaculture

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caltrek
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Cotton Breeders are Using Genetic Insights to Make This Global Crop More Sustainable
by Serina Taluja
July 8, 2022

Introduction:
(The Conversation) Products derived from the cotton plant show up in many items that people use daily, including blue jeans, bedsheets, paper, candles and peanut butter. In the United States cotton is a US$7 billion annual crop grown in 17 states from Virginia to Southern California. Today, however, it’s at risk.

Cotton plants from fields in India, China and the U.S. – the world’s top three producers – all grow, flower and produce cotton fiber very similarly. That’s because they are genetically very similar.

This can be a good thing, since breeders select the best-performing plants and cross-breed them to produce better cotton every generation. If one variety produces the best-quality fiber that sells for the best price, growers will plant that type exclusively. But after many years of this cycle, cultivated cotton all starts to look the same: high-yielding and easy for farmers to harvest using machines, but wildly underprepared to fight disease, drought or insect-borne pathogens.

Breeding alone may not be enough to combat the low genetic diversity of the cultivated cotton genome, since breeding works with what exists, and what exists all looks the same. And genetic modification may not be a realistic option for creating cotton that is useful for farmers, because getting engineered crops approved is expensive and heavily regulated. My research focuses on possible solutions that lie at the intersection between these tools.
Read more here: https://theconversation.com/cotton-br ... e-185284

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Cotton is grown in 13 states across the southern U.S. The western half of this belt has been in drought since 2000.
USDA

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How Foreign Private Equity Hooked New England’s Fishing Industry
by Will Sennot
July 6, 2022

Extract:
(ProPublica) Blue Harvest and other companies linked to private equity firms and foreign investors have taken over much of New England’s fishing industry. As already harsh working conditions have deteriorated, the new group of owners has depressed income by pushing expenses onto fishermen, an investigation by ProPublica and The New Bedford Light has found. Blue Harvest has also benefited from lax antitrust rules governing how much fish it can catch.

Since it was founded in 2015, Blue Harvest has been acquiring vessels, fishing permits and processing facilities up and down the East Coast. It started with the self-proclaimed goal of “dominance” over the scallop industry. It has expanded into groundfish, tuna and swordfish, as well as becoming a government contractor, winning a $16.6 million contract from the U.S. Department of Agriculture this past February to supply food assistance programs.

The acquisitions are backed by $600 million in capital from Bregal Partners, a Manhattan-based private equity firm. Bregal is an arm of a firm owned by a Dutch billionaire family, who are best known for their multinational clothing company, which maintains a steady track record of environmental philanthropy and low-wage labor around the globe.

Bregal, its parent company and Blue Harvest President Chip Wilson did not respond to questions. Wilson said in an email that he has been “fighting a handful of fires” and that “speaking with the press has been low on my priority list of late.” He is more concerned “about moving our strategy forward so that the 200+ folks who work for Blue Harvest can be confident about their future,” he said.

“New Bedford is an interesting community, particularly in this ‘colorful’ sector, and the rumor mill is particularly vicious,” he added. “I cannot tell you how many times I have listened to employees scared to the core for themselves and their families due to unsubstantiated rumors about our company.”
Read more here: https://www.propublica.org/article/fis ... -equity
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The Future of Food: Reimagining Climate-Resilient Food Systems in the Post Pandemic World
by Dr. Shoba Suri and Aparna Roy
July 3, 2022

Introduction:
(Observer Research Foundation) There is no dearth of problems associated with nutrition and public health: hunger, malnutrition, food-borne diseases, and food insecurity, among them. The World Health Organization (WHO) has found that every year, nearly 600 million people (7.5 percent of the global population) fall ill from eating contaminated food and 420,000 die because of it. Children under five bear 40 percent of the food-borne disease burden.[1] Almost one-third of the world’s population did not have access to adequate food in 2020; 3 billion could not get healthy food. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has found that around 720-811 million face hunger. Undernourishment rates among children have also been rising alarmingly.

The issues of poor food safety, food insecurity, and unsustainable food systems are closely interlinked. These have been further exacerbated by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, and have disproportionately affected some populations more than others. The importance of access to safe and nutritious food therefore cannot be overemphasised.

Food Composition and Human Health

With a rapidly growing human population and burgeoning demand for food, intensive use of agrochemicals—i.e., pesticides and fertilisers—has become the norm to ramp up production of livestock and crops. Without chemical pesticides, and crop protection in general, more than half of the world’s crops would be destroyed by insects, weeds, and diseases. Food production per acre would decline rapidly; the area of land used for crop cultivation would have to increase. This, in turn, would have detrimental effects on wildlife habitats and ecosystems and dilute the quality of soil due to erosion (see Figure 1). There is also the likelihood of a rise in food prices and reduced food output.

The use of agrochemicals, however, comes at a perilous cost.
Read more here: https://www.orfonline.org/research/the ... f-food/
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weatheriscool wrote: Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:11 pm Artificial photosynthesis can produce food without sunshine
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-artificia ... shine.html
by Holly Ober, University of California - Riverside
Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into plant biomass and the foods we eat. This process, however, is very inefficient, with only about 1% of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant. Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis.

The research, published in Nature Food, uses a two-step electrocatalytic process to convert carbon dioxide, electricity, and water into acetate, the form of the main component of vinegar. Food-producing organisms then consume acetate in the dark to grow. Combined with solar panels to generate the electricity to power the electrocatalysis, this hybrid organic-inorganic system could increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight into food, up to 18 times more efficient for some foods.

"With our approach we sought to identify a new way of producing food that could break through the limits normally imposed by biological photosynthesis," said corresponding author Robert Jinkerson, a UC Riverside assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering.
I bet this is how the Machines made the nutrient broth that they fed to their unconscious human slaves in The Matrix.
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Farms Under Threat


Introduction:
(American Farmland Trust) Farms Under Threat is AFT’s multi-year effort to advance cutting-edge solutions for farmland protection. We use high-resolution spatial analysis tools to identify exactly where agricultural land has been converted to urban and low-density residential land uses—and to anticipate future threats. We have also done a deep analysis of every state’s policies for protecting farmland and ranchland, promoting agricultural viability, and helping transfer land to the next generation of farmers and ranchers.

Farms Under Threat 2040: Choosing an Abundant Future projects three alternative development scenarios from 2016 to 2040 — Business as Usual, Runaway Sprawl and Better Built Cities. The report shows that development choices have a significant effect on the future of farmland and ranchland and urges Americans to embrace Better Built Cities to safeguard local farms and ranches, bolster the global food system, and improve people’s daily lives.
Read more here: https://farmland.org/project/farms-und ... 0lives.
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Ultra-processed Foods Make Up Almost Two-thirds of Britain’s School Meals
July 19, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) School meals in the UK contain lots of highly processed foods, promoting poor health among children and increasing their risk of obesity.

British primary and secondary schoolchildren are getting the majority of their lunchtime calories from ‘ultra-processed’ foods, according to a study led by researchers at Imperial College London and published today in the journal Nutrients.

The analysis, which looked at the content of school lunches of more than 3,000 children between 2008-2017, finds that 64% of the calories in meals provided by the school come from ultra-processed foods, contributing to the consumption of high levels of processed foods and increasing the risk of childhood obesity. Ultra-processed bread, snacks, puddings and sugary drinks were among the biggest contributors, and on the whole packed lunches contained more calories from highly processed foods, compared to school meals.

According to the researchers, publicly funded school meals (i.e. free school meals and those that children buy in school) are a vital mechanism to deliver healthy food to children, especially those from families with low incomes. They explain the findings highlight a key opportunity for policy makers and educators to ‘level the playing field’ by improving the nutritional quality of school lunches. They argue that urgent policy changes are needed to cap the amount processed foods school lunches contain and to increase access to free school meals, which could help to boost the diets and health of Britain’s children.

Dr Jennie Parnham, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London and first author on the paper, said: “This is the first study to look at the extent of ultra-processed food content in school lunches for children of all ages. We need to view these findings as a call to action to invest in policies that can promote healthy eating. Owing to the current cost of living crisis, school meals should be a way for all children to access a low-cost nutritious meal. Yet, our research suggests this is not currently the case.”
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/959210
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How Germany is Kicking Its Meat Habit
by Kenny Torrella
July 22, 2022

Introduction:
(Vox) Oktoberfest — the annual two-week festival in Munich, Germany, that attracts some 6 million attendees a year — originally began in 1810 as the gaudy celebration of a royal marriage. Today, it’s primarily a good reason for visitors to drink about 2 million gallons of beer while eating nearly half a million roast chickens and over 400,000 sausages.

Once Oktoberfest is done, Germans will keep drinking beer; Germany, after all, ranks sixth in the world in per capita alcohol consumption. But the decadent displays of meat at Oktoberfest aren’t necessarily indicative of Germans’ year-round eating habits. In fact, Germany is one of the few places in the world where meat consumption is decreasing — and fast.

In 2011, Germans ate 138 pounds of meat each year. Today, it’s 121 pounds — a 12.3 percent decline. And much of that decline took place in the last few years, a time period when grocery sales of plant-based food nearly doubled.

The trend runs counter to virtually everywhere else on the planet, where meat consumption is quickly rising — from citizens of low-income countries adding more meat to their diet as incomes increase, to rich countries where meat consumption has more or less plateaued at a high level or continues to slowly increase. (Sweden, like Germany, is a notable exception.)

Understanding the causes behind Germany’s newfound love for vegetarian fare could be critical in figuring out how to slow climate change and improve overall health. Meat and dairy production account for around 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and most countries’ per capita meat consumption far exceeds the 57 pounds per year recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission, a panel of climate and nutrition experts.
Read more here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23 ... xitarian
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Pollen and Heat: A Looming Challenge for Global Agriculture
by Carolyn Beans
June 14, 2022

Introduction:
(Yale Environment 360) Last June, Aaron Flansburg felt the temperature spike and knew what that meant for his canola crop. A fifth-generation grower in Washington state, Flansburg times his canola planting to bloom in the cool weeks of early summer. But last year, his fields were hit with 108-degree Fahrenheit heat just as flowers opened. “That is virtually unheard of for our area to have a temperature like that in June,” he says.

Yellow blooms sweltered, reproduction stalled, and many seeds that would have been pressed for canola oil never formed. Flansburg yielded about 600 to 800 pounds per acre. The previous year, under ideal weather conditions, he had reached as high as 2,700.

Many factors likely contributed to this poor harvest — heat and drought persisted throughout the growing season. But one point is becoming alarmingly clear to scientists: heat is a pollen killer. Even with adequate water, heat can damage pollen and prevent fertilization in canola and many other crops, including corn, peanuts, and rice.

For this reason, many growers aim for crops to bloom before the temperature rises. But as climate change increases the number of days over 90 degrees in regions across the globe, and multi-day stretches of extreme heat become more common, getting that timing right could become challenging, if not impossible.

Faced with a warmer future, researchers are searching for ways to help pollen beat the heat. They’re uncovering genes that could lead to more heat-tolerant varieties and breeding cultivars that can survive winter and flower before heat strikes. They’re probing pollen’s precise limits and even harvesting pollen at large scales to spray directly onto crops when weather improves.
Read more here: https://e360.yale.edu/features/pollen- ... riculture
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How Some Cassava Plants Evade Mosiac Virus
by Peter Ruego
July 27, 2022

Extract:
(Futurity) Researchers have identified the gene responsible for resistance in certain cassava cultivars against the devastating cassava mosaic disease.

Cassava, also known as manioc, is a staple food for nearly one billion people and an important source of raw materials. It secures an income for smallholder farmers, especially in Africa. Cassava is an undemanding crop; it does not need fertilizer and even grows in dry areas.

Many pests and diseases affect cassava cultivation, however. Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) in particular is often damaging to the crop. CMD results from DNA geminiviruses that are transmitted to plants by sap-sucking whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) and can destroy entire fields and decimate yields.

Working with several resistant and susceptible West African cassava cultivars, the research team led by Wilhelm Gruissem, professor of plant biotechnology at ETH Zurich, used genome analyses to identify the gene responsible for a specific resistance to cassava mosaic virus.

As reported in Nature Communications, the team shows that the resistance is caused by a single gene that is the blueprint for a DNA polymerase—an enzyme responsible for replicating DNA within a cell. However, the DNA polymerase not only replicates DNA, it also performs “proofreading” to correct errors in the sequence of DNA building blocks that may occur during replication. And it is precisely this enzyme that the geminiviruses require to replicate their own DNA and consequently to reproduce.
Read more here: https://www.futurity.org/cassava-mosa ... 773682-2/

For a technical review of the study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31414-0
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How Year-round Crops Could Reduce Farm Pollution in the Mississippi River
by Chloe Johnson
August 2, 2022

Introduction:
(Investigate Midwest) Don Wyse’s field of winter barley used to be mostly empty in the spring.

Eight years ago, just a tenth of the grain would survive the winter in this experimental field in St. Paul. But this year, after repeatedly refining the plants’ genetics, the field was flush with swaying, pale yellow grain heads.

The winter is the first hurdle that researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Forever Green Initiative must get over as they attempt to breed new crops that can cover farm fields year round – and in the process, help water quality across the state.

For years, Minnesota has struggled to reduce the farm pollution from fertilizers and other sources that runs into streams, lakes, the Mississippi River and eventually, the Gulf of Mexico.

Additional extract:
“The only way to keep nitrogen from flushing through the soil is to have roots intercept that nitrogen,” DeHaan said.

Read more here: https://investigatemidwest.org/2022/08 ... pi-river/
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