Lending to Poor Farmers: Seeding the Market
Microcredit outfits dealing in tiny loans have proved that the poorest of the poor can be perfectly responsible borrowers. Root Capital and other specialist lenders are showing the same is true of bigger loans to groups of subsistence farmers. The company says that less than 3 percent of its loans go bad. The loans, which come with free advice and training in how best to use the money, are helping farmers increase their productivity and so boost their incomes.
 
Can Aqua-Spark Fund the Future of Aquaculture?
Aquaculture is the fastest-growing animal-based food industry. Yet it’s not unusual for fish farms to pollute local waters, damage coastal habitat and deplete the oceans of feeder fish. Aqua-Spark, a global investment fund, aims to do better. The fund, which focuses exclusively on aquaculture, recently made its first two investments, into a biotech company whose technology makes fish feed out of methane gas, and into a tilapia-farming startup in Mozambique.
 
3 Big Food System Problems Begging for Innovation
I see three big food system problems: We consume too much food, we produce too little food, and our farming screws up the environment. But even if we fixed these problems, and all our food were evenly distributed, people would start going hungry by 2050. We need to increase production, too. And we need to do it in a way that improves the environment. Innovation can help with all of these things.
 
This Rusty Steelworks Is about to Become a Kaleworks
A defunct steel factory in Newark, N.J., is slated to become the world’s largest indoor farm. The venture-backed company AeroFarms will bring jobs to the city, replacing blight with business. It will grow produce without pesticides. Its project will be incredibly efficient with water. It’s land-saving — able to grow tons of food in a small space. It can control its weather. And it’s close to a lot of eaters.