The apple harvest season is swinging into full gear, and in the NW corner of the country organic apples are growing on more trees than ever before. The Packer, the leading produce-industry newspaper, reports that the volume of Washington State’s organic apple crop will grow by another 30% this year. Apple orchards now are found throughout […]
Read More, References, Comment »
The following “Open Letter” has been sent to the CEO of Cibus, a company doing cutting-edge R+D using CRISPR and other gene-editing and gene-silencing technologies (referred to as CRISPR et al. in the letter below). The letter responds to a recent Scientific American Network blog by the CEO of Cibus, Dr. Peter Beetham. His hope, and Cibus’s mission, […]
Read More, References, Comment »
In stunning new science, a research team at the University of Lleida, Spain and the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute in Barcelona have developed a variety of transgenic rice that can be used to produce a topical medication to prevent HIV infection. The idea behind this type of research is that these modified plants are essentially a […]
Read More, References, Comment »
A new study published in Science makes some progress untangling the roots of what’s known as the “irrigation paradox.” Water is precious, and irrigating crops uses a whole lot of it – accounting for 70% of global fesh water extractions. And, in many key agricultural regions, water availability is the key limiting factor to crop yields, and […]
Read More, References, Comment »
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) considers wheat to be “the most important food grain source for humans” (Source, FAO) and globally wheat fields cover more land area than any other commercial crop. Thus, the new science out of the Earlham Institute in the U.K. has important implications. ScienceDaily reports on the paper published […]
Read More, References, Comment »
It is widely accepted that consumer tastes, preferences, and concerns will drive the Future of Food. The companies that find a way to connect with consumers on these issues will gain market share and traction, or so the theory goes. But how will consumers know which foods are tastier and more nutritious? Safer and less […]
Read More, References, Comment »
“Physiologically we’re discovering that not every calorie is equal.” Dr. Siddahrta Mukherjee, Columbia University Medical Center Amen. Each gram of fat contains roughly the same calories, yet the nutritional value of fat varies greatly across different saturated fats, in saturated fats versus monounsaturated fats, in omega-3 vs. omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), in long-chain PUFAs […]
Read More, References, Comment »
We launch today a new, focused look at “The Future of Food” — the introduction and landing page to this new section of Hygeia is here. A day rarely goes by without another article, or several, about some high-tech “solution” to one of the stubborn problems plaguing agriculture and our food system. Some of the […]
Read More, References, Comment »
Yes, you heard us right. Robotics is coming to agriculture. Companies around the world are racing to develop new tools in this rapidly growing field. China just launched a seven-year program to develop “autonomous agriculture” (Minter, 2018), and organic farmers in Australia are getting a $250,000 government grant to use robotic weeders on their organic […]
Read More, References, Comment »
In an important dietary shift that has been a long time coming, following a three-year phase out period on June 18, 2018, artificial trans fats are now officially banned in the U.S. food supply. These altered vegetable oils, which have been partially hydrogenated to extend the shelf life of some processed foods, have long been linked […]
Read More, References, Comment »
