To help close data gaps and contribute to better guidance for nutrition-sensitive agrifood systems policies, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has created a new domain in the FAOSTAT portal. The domain presents harmonized food and nutrient statistics from different types and sources of dietary data. It reports statistics on the availability, apparent consumption, and dietary intake of foods, energy and 17 main nutrients thus capturing different dimensions across the food supply chain, from supply through to individual-level consumption.

Colombo must justify the renewal of its Ramsar Wetland City status this year. Has the city sufficiently utilized green infrastructure? Sitting at the Kelani River delta on the west coast of Sri Lanka, set amidst a backdrop of shiny hotels, red-tiled colonial era-buildings and street markets, Colombo appears to be your typical Asian metropolis. But interspersed amongst the city’s built environment sit 19 kilometers of wetlands. Colombo’s urban wetlands make the city livable. Every Colombo resident benefits directly or indirectly from various wetland services.

Researchers from the Sanming Academy of Agricultural Sciences in China reported the gene in rice's formation of chlorophyll and chloroplast. Their findings are published in Plant Growth Regulation. Chlorophyll production and chloroplast development are vital in studying leaf color, a highly important agronomic trait, especially in rice. The research team found mutant rice oryza sativa albino leaf 50 (osal50), which lacks the usual green pigments and exhibits white stripes on the leaves and with white panicles.

In a race against a devastating parasite, African researchers are pioneering using CRISPR to improve local crops. Led by scientists like Steven Runo of Kenya, these efforts tackle challenges like witchweed infestations in sorghum and lethal diseases in maize, with promising results. Sorghum, a staple food and versatile crop, suffers greatly from Striga, a parasitic weed siphoning off nutrients and crippling yields. Runo's team, though not the first to field-test gene-edited crops in Africa, is working on sorghum resistant to this threat. Their CRISPR-edited variety mimics natural mutations in resilient wild strains, offering hope for future field trials.

Pairwise, a health-focused food and agriculture company, has received confirmation of nine new regulatory exemptions from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for gene-edited blackberries and black raspberries. These new exemptions represent different traits that are important to both consumers and growers. The new nine exemptions bring the total number of Pairwise's confirmed trait exemptions for berries to 19, which include seedless, thornless, and higher-yielding traits in blackberry and black raspberry.

Researchers from Tufts University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have successfully engineered autocrine signaling to reduce fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), which causes substantial high costs of media components in cultivated meat. The findings of the study published in Cell Reports Sustainability offer an alternative approach to lowering the costs of growth factor requirements. Cultivated meat, also known as cultured meat or cell-based meat, is a promising technology that aims to reduce the environmental impact of meat production through cell culture.

Researchers from Finland discovered that plastic surfaces with resin displayed good antiviral activity against human coronavirus. The functionalized plastic surface demonstrates great potential as an antiviral surface for certain viruses. Viruses may stay on solid surfaces, which may cause indirect transmission of disease. That's why it is important to produce functionalized surfaces to decrease the infectious viral load that may affect our health.

In November 2023, the CGIAR Research Initiative on Sustainable Healthy Diets through Food Systems Transformation (SHiFT) held its first research partner meeting to share research findings, evaluate progress, and set goals for the future. Researchers from SHiFT’s Work Package 3 on Governance and Inclusive Food Systems (WP3) discussed their approach to understanding and navigating the complex challenges surrounding food systems transformation.

ISAAA Inc., in partnership with the Biotechnology Coalition of the Philippines (BCP), will hold the second webinar of the series about gene editing. The second webinar, titled Gene Genies: Gene Editing by Filipino Scientists (Applications in Livestock and Aquaculture), is scheduled on February 26, 2024, at 10:00 AM GMT+8. The pre-registration is now open to all high schools in the Philippines. Each school may submit names of five students and one teacher as participants.

VIB has submitted an application for a new field trial of genome-edited maize. The field trial will look into the development and composition of plant cell walls and how they can be changed to optimize applications in the paper and pulp industry, bioenergy, but more so in the use of plants in animal feed. Scientists from the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology have disabled specific genes in maize that are involved in cell wall formation.