Safi Organics: A Life-Changing Fertilizer for Rural Farmers in Kenya
MIT spinout Safi Organics uses farmers’ crop residue to make an organic fertilizer that can increase yields and improve soil health. Most commercial fertilizer travels…
Agriculture News
NASA Spinoffs Help Clean Pollution, Fight Coronavirus, Grow Food & More
NASA’s mission of exploration requires new technologies, software, and research – which show up in daily life. The agency’s Spinoff 2022 publication tells the stories…
Avoiding Climate Catastrophe: Global Elimination of Meat Production Could Save the Planet
Eliminating all animal agriculture within the next 15 years would drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A new…
How Temperate Rainforests Can Effectively Aid the Fight Against Climate Change
There is global recognition that woodland expansion could be one of the most effective solutions in the fight against climate change. However, new research has…
Dry Rice: Cracking the Core Physiological and Molecular Traits of Drought-Tolerant Rice
Study links gene expression patterns to traits that improve drought tolerance in rice plants. For many smallholder farmers in South and Southeast Asia, rice is…
Explosive Volcanic Eruptions Contributed to Collapse of China Dynasties
Eruptions create sulfuric acid clouds in the upper atmosphere and can cool the climate. Volcanic eruptions contributed to the collapse of dynasties in China in…
Swapping a Single Food Item per Day Can Make Diets Way More Planet-Friendly
Americans who eat beef could slash their diet’s carbon footprint as much as 48 percent by swapping just one serving per day for a more…
Failed Rainy Seasons Create Massive Food Emergency in Eastern Africa
More than 20 million people in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia now face some of the worst food security risks in 35 years. Following three consecutive…
Lychee Genome Tells a Colorful Story About an Ancient Tropical Fruit
Radiant and flavorful, lychees were so beloved that they were domesticated not just once in ancient times, but independently in two different regions of China,…
New Grafting Technique Could Combat Panama Disease Threatening Bananas Across the World
Scientists have found a novel way to combine two species of grass-like plant including banana, rice, and wheat, using embryonic tissue from their seeds. The…
Meet the Oystamaran: MIT’s Robot Developed To Help Oyster Farmers
Working directly with oyster farmers, MIT students are developing a robot that can flip heavy, floating bags of oysters, helping the shellfish to grow and…
Plant Disease Management: New Method for Early Detection of Bacterial Infection in Crops
The Raman spectroscopy-based method enables early detection and quantification of pathogens in plants, to enhance plant disease management. Researchers from the Disruptive and Sustainable Technologies…
The US Biofuel Mandate Helps Farmers, but Harms the Environment
If you’ve pumped gas at a U.S. service station over the past decade, you’ve put biofuel in your tank. Thanks to the federal Renewable Fuel…
Cheers! Better Beer From CRISPR Gene-Edited Barley
Using CRISPR/Cas9 technology, scientists develop and study gene-edited barley that resists pre-harvest sprouting. After a spell of unexpected rain, before the harvest season, a farmer…
NASA Research: Climate Change and Its Environmental Impacts on Crop Growth
The Earth is heating up. The effects of human-caused global climate change are becoming more and more apparent as we see more record-breaking heat waves,…
Sustainably Mining Rare Earth Elements From Fertilizer Byproduct
Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually that rare. The 17 metallic elements are ubiquitous in nature and are becoming even more common…
Three Ways To Reduce the Carbon Footprint of American Food
Most consumers want to make food purchases that are smart for their wallets, their health, and the environment. And while switching to a vegetarian or…
Quillwort Genome Could Hold Secrets To Make Crops Use Water or Carbon Dioxide More Efficiently
Researchers have assembled a high-quality Isoetes genome that furthers understanding how these aquatic plants regulate CAM photosynthesis to compete for carbon dioxide underwater, and how…
