Postharvest loss has been a significant threat to achieving food security and safety in most developing countries across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for many years. Most cereals, pulses, and oilseeds are prone to infestation by larger grain borer (LGB), weevils, bruchids, and aflatoxin contamination after harvest. Concurrently, smallholder farmers often use ineffective traditional storage structures and grain protectants—ash, soil, and plant oils as storage techniques.

Planet vs. Plastics unites students, parents, businesses, governments, churches, unions, individuals, and NGOs in an unwavering commitment to call for the end of plastics for the sake of human and planetary health, demanding a 60% reduction in the production of plastics by 2040 and an ultimate goal of building a plastic-free future for generations to come.

Chinese researchers produced a chip that allows on-site determination of nutrients in soil. This tool will help boost crop growth in farms. Nutrients, such as potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus, are crucial for crop growth and agricultural production. That is why it is important to quickly and accurately detect soil nutrients to guide fertilization practices.

Researchers produced a high-quality reference genome of Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica), which reveals its origin story and future under climate change. Arabica is the most well-known coffee species in the world. By studying its origin and breeding history, new Arabica cultivars may be developed that will be more adapted to climate change. Researchers from various institutions used DNA sequencing technology and data science to sequence an 18th-century specimen and 39 Arabica varieties.

The webinar was attended by 37 participants representing different agencies in the Philippines, such as the National Committee on Biosafety of the Philippines (NCBP), Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The participants were welcomed by Ms. Maria Lorelie Agbagala, Assistant Scientist and Head Secretariat of NCBP and the DOST Biosafety Committee (DOST-BC).

Ameriacan Biotechnology holds promise for a more sustainable and secure global food supply. This technology can improve food production through increased yield, disease resistance, and better adaptability to climate change. Dr. Eric Hallerman, professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and his co-authors, tackled the importance of enabling regulations for animal biotech in a review article published in CABI Agriculture and Bioscience.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched a 15 million euro ($16.29 million) project funded by the European Union (EU) to help Uganda’s forestry sector contribute more sustainably to the economy and the environment. The five-year Sustainable Wood-Based Value Chains in Uganda initiative, to be implemented by FAO, aims to ensure the sustainable supply of legal wood raw material from planted forests, enhance the processing capacity and market demand for wood products and improve the availability of and access to affordable finance.

The interconnection between the health of people, animals, plants and their shared environment is becoming more evident as endemic, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases increase in prevalence. One Health, which is a cross-sectoral approach, is key to the mitigation of these challenges, which include antimicrobial resistance and zoonoses such as avian influenza, Ebola, Marburg and COVID-19.

Researchers from the National Key Laboratory for Biological Breeding of Tropical Crops and Sugarcane Research Institute in Yunnan, China, reviewed the gene editing techniques used in sugarcane and cultivated grasses and identified if they can also be used for non-cultivated grasses. Climate change has negative effects on plants, such as crops and grasses.

TALENs is one of the powerful tools developed for gene editing. It is an engineered endonuclease composed of a programmable, sequence-specific DNA-binding domain to a nonspecific DNA cleavage domain. Because of this tool's ability to efficiently and rapidly modify genomes, it has been a popular option for biological research. One of the promising uses of TALENs is to help produce plant metabolites that supplement or substitute conventional anti-diabetic drug therapy targeting the modifications at the molecular level.