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Microbial Magic Could Help Slash Your Dinner's Carbon Footprint

Hannah Thomasy

June 29, 2018 |

NPR |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

"What if we could help plants make their own nitrogen so they wouldn't need manmade chemical fertilizers?" That was the question that drove a plant microbiologist at the University of Washington to begin testing ways to infuse microbes that live inside trees into other plants to promote sustainable agriculture. The early results show not only healthier plants, but a more plentiful production.

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Wheat in heat: the 'crazy idea' that could combat food insecurity

Mark Hillsdon

March 23, 2018 |

The Guardian |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Senegal, Ndiayene Pendao

After many years of attempts, scientists have discovered how to create a heat tolerant wheat that has the potential of impacting the growing concerns around food insecurity. Tested in sub-Saharan temperatures in Senegal, the International Centre for Research in the Dry Areas (Icarda) have seen success with their strain of wheat that turns this formerly cold-weather only crop into a fast-growing crop that can withstand 40C temperatures and be grown in the between seasons of planting rice crops.

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How close are we to a hamburger grown in a lab?

Charlotte Hawks

March 08, 2018 |

CNN |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Could clean meat be the solution for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, feeding an ever-growing human population and saving water? A growing number of food innovators think so, as do investors such as Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Although too expensive to hit the market immediately, production is in the works to create clean meat from animal cells that may be better for human health and the health of the environment.

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One Fish, Two Fish, Strange Fish, New Fish

Richard Martin

February 13, 2018 |

bioGraphic |

Multi-Media |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Maynard, Massachusetts

Genetically engineered foods have found their place in the world's diet through a variety of means. AquaBounty Technologies has taken this practice and found a successful way to apply it to the engineering of salmon, introducing a means to potentially cut back on overfishing while also supplying a nutritious alternative to more affluent counties and simultaneously help aid the people of the developing world that have little access to meat. Despite facing years of pushback from North America, the company has successfully been selling the salmon in Canadian grocery stores and hopes to expand the sales soon.

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'Super beans' raise hopes in hunger-prone parts of Africa

Rodney Muhumuza

December 03, 2017 |

Associated Press |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: Uganda, Nwoya

Food security due to land degradation is a growing concern in Uganda, especially in light of the massive influx of South Sudanese refugees streaming into the country and the instability of food donations to support them. A new, high-yield "super bean," specially bred by 'gene banks' in Africa for its rapid maturation rate, is helping Ugandan farmers to grow more of their own food with fewer resources and break the dependency on aid to feed their families.

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Why This Cardiologist Is Betting That His Lab-Grown Meat Startup Can Solve the Global Food Crisis

Jeff Bercovici

October 24, 2017 |

Inc. Magazine |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, California

"If I continued as a cardiologist, maybe I would save 2,000 or 3,000 lives over the next 30 years, But if I focus on this, I have the potential to save billions of human lives and trillions of animal lives," explains Uma Valeti a cardiologist turned clean meat founder and engineer. Valeti, along with a team of similarly minded colleagues are looking to market the first ever meat that doesn't come from killing animals.

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The Impossible Burger: Inside the Strange Science of the Fake Meat That 'Bleeds'

Matt Simon

September 20, 2017 |

Wired |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Silicon Valley, California

A genetically engineered fake meat that smells, tastes and has the same texture as a regular beef burger? Sounds impossible, but it's not for the Impossible Burger. Made from ingredients such as wheat and potato protein and coconut, it's the tactic of extracting heme (the ingredient found in the hemoglobin of cows) from leghemoglobin (a the plant alternative) that really helps the Impossible Burger succeed. This success is also a success for the environment by using less land, a quarter of the water and emitting an eighth of the greenhouse gases than is reported for livestock rearing.

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How Startups and Nonprofits Are Collaborating to Build the “Clean Meat” Industry

Kenny Torrella

August 30, 2017 |

Conscious Company Media |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States

When scientists, startups and non-profits team up, everyone benefits - or so it seems in the case of creating clean meat. While there has been a push to focus on reinventing meat due to animal farming's impact on the environment as well as questionable ethical practices, funding such research isn't always the most practical. New York City-based non-profit, New Harvest, however, is changing that practice by "funding open-source university research that for-profit ventures and other scientists can build on."

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Inside Canada's Secret Potato Laboratory

Karen Pinchin

April 13, 2017 |

The Walrus |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Canada, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Potato breeding has become common practice for some in Canada that are on a mission grow the spud more efficiently in order to anticipate demand and availability. So far they've been able to experiment with an earlier growing season as well as shed light on which potato breeding strategies can fight pests and diseases.

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How Vermont changed the national GMO-labeling debate

Lonnie Shekhtman

July 08, 2016 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Albuquerque, Vermont

Vermont's passage of a law requiring food that is genetically modified to be labeled spurred action at the national level to create one standard, rather than a patchwork of state laws, that offers food companies several ways to label foods with GMOs. The national bill did eventually pass, but as this piece illustrates, no one seems very happy about it. Environmentalists feel it leaves large loopholes and while the food industry likes one standard, it does not like the stigma the GMO label confers.

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