A team of researchers led by the Imperial College London and the Queen Mary University of London have mapped a key process in energy conversion in plants. This study could help scientists improve the resilience of important crops and engineer bacteria that can produce useful compounds such as pharmaceuticals more sustainably.

A study conducted by researchers at New York University (NYU) together with their colleagues from National Taiwan University, Purdue University, and the University of Illinois has found genes, through machine learning, that help crops grow with less fertilizer and predict additional traits in plants and disease outcomes in animals.

To "produce more with less", stakeholders in the agri-food systems were urged to level up science and innovation and seek effective and long-lasting solutions to support biodiversity. This was emphasized by Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), during a session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA).

A group of students from the Leiden University in The Netherlands developed a "lock" to decrease the chances of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) turning into invasive species when released into the environment. The technology is their entry to this year's iGEM biology competition.The Double Plasmid Lock (DOPL LOCK) was created with the idea of distributing the foreign genetic material of the GMO between two separate DNA plasmids.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has been awarded the 2021 Africa Food Prize, for work that has improved food security across 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.ICRISAT, a CGIAR Research Center, is a non-profit, non-political public international research organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world.

How homologous DNA duplexes in chromosomes are checked for correct alignment prior to exchange of genetic information during meiosis in Eukaryotes is a longstanding puzzle, a gap in our knowledge of the molecular processes essential for evolution in the more complex cellular organisms that include fungi, plants, and primates. A mechanism to check correct alignment of homologous DNA duplexes prior to committing to irreversible recombination is essential to limit the usually disastrous consequences of scrambling DNA sequences at random.

All seems at peace. Just the sound of bleating goats and clanging tin cooking pots ring out over the land as the sun sets between Tanzania’s Lake Natron and the mountain of Ol Doinyo Lengai, meaning ‘Mountain of God’ in the Maasai language. These two powerful symbols of nature make the village of Engaresero spectacularly unique. The Maasai pastoralists who have occupied the land for over two hundred years lead a semi-nomadic existence following a strict pattern of land rotation that ensures certain areas are left fallow for several months at a time.

Efforts to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic have sent shockwaves across the globe. The immediate measures to preserve human life and bring the health crisis under control have been wholly necessary, but as restrictions on modern life remain in place for months to come, disruptions to food systems will inevitably become more acute. The number of hungry people, already at 800 million, could double as part of the wider fallout from the pandemic.

The Council for Partnership on Rice Research in Asia (CORRA) recently hosted an online science webinar entitled “Rice Straw Management: Scaling GHG Emission-Reducing Technologies and Practices” that presented different options for repurposing the rice byproduct, as an alternative to the practice of rice straw burning.Every year, over 600 million tonnes of rice straw is produced after rice harvesting globally.

Just days after the UN Food Systems Summit in New York (September 23), the youth led World Food Forum (WFF) holds its first flagship event in Rome on October 1-5, bringing together people from diverse sectors around the world to galvanize global action following up to the Summit.The five-day flagship event aims to spur actions by youth to help shape the future of food and agriculture.