Could A Mushroom Save The Honeybee?
Honeybees need a healthy diet of pollen, nectar, and water. But mycologist Steve Sheppard’s bees are getting a healthy dose of mushroom juice. He says he noticed a relationship between honeybees and mushrooms when he observed bees sipping on sugar-rich fungal roots growing in his backyard. His research has shown that rare fungi can help fight other viruses and diseases, including tuberculosis, smallpox and bird flu.
On the Roof and in the Living Room, Startups Tackle Urban Farming
With farmland expensive and scarce, more people are thinking about growing food in urban areas. For a new generation of entrepreneurs, investing in the future of urban agriculture makes sense. Scientists predict population growth of billions within the next several decades, with most of those people living in urban areas. "This is perhaps the most entrepreneurial generation we’ve seen in a long time," said Catherine Bertini, former executive director of the UN’s World Food Program.
Insects as Food and Feed: What Are the Risks?
Interest is growing in the potential benefits of using insects in food and animal feed, but what would be the risks from production, processing, and consumption of this alternative source of protein? The European Food Safety Authority has addressed this question with a risk profile that identifies the potential biological and chemical hazards as well as allergenicity and environmental hazards associated with the use of farmed insects as food and feed.
The World’s First Robot Farm Requires No (Human) Farmers at All
One of the newest indoor farms, from a Japanese company called SPREAD, is fully automating the entire farming process. SPREAD, which already operates a few indoor farms around Japan, will open a new, enormous “vegetable factory” outside Kyoto sometime in 2017. The new farm will focus on lettuce, which grows easily indoors, and will be able to pump out 10 million heads of lettuce in a year, more than three times as much as the next largest SPREAD farm.
This New Technology Treats Manure so Well You Can Drink It
Agriculture already consumes 70% of the world’s water supplies, but the pressure on farmers to become better conservationists has never been greater. Seeking provable farm-scale solutions, some producers have turned to an invention by an unlikely entrepreneur from an unlikely place. Livestock Water Recycling focuses on agriculture, developing and selling technology that pumps hog and cattle manure into solid nutrient byproducts and pristine, pathogen-free water—all of which can be reapplied as fertilizer or for irrigation.
Research Beefing up Steaks, Hamburgers with Healthy Omega-3s
Health-conscious consumers might be persuaded to eat more beef if it was fortified with heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids naturally found in salmon and walnuts, according to researchers and some ranchers who are feeding cattle flaxseed — even marine algae — with an eye to offering another wholesome dinner choice. Can the steaks and hamburgers from cattle fattened on algae pass on those healthy fats?