Welcome to the latest edition of Global Signals, your regular update of new and interesting signals in the world of AgriFoodTech. In this issue, we cover a range of topics from carbon-negative food, to new insecticides created from spider venom.
We’ve designed this newsletter to inform New Zealand’s agritech sector of the significant global developments in the sector, and to help spark new ideas. Make sure you join us on LinkedIn to be part of the conversation.
Kia pai te rā,
Melissa (FutureCentre.nz) and Shane (Callaghan Innovation)
Signal to Action - A Global Signals workshop
Spot Emerging Futures and Innovate to Win Inside Them
The Agritech ITP is delighted to be working with David Mattin, founder and author newsletter on trends, technology, and society - New World Same Humans, do deliver the next Global Signals workshop.
In this deep dive workshop, we'll explore four key trends reshaping both agritech and the broader business, consumer, and technology landscape. Next, we'll put those trends to work. That means leveraging a simple, powerful method to turn trends into new innovation ideas and strategic directions for your organisation.
You'll leave with a set of relevant and actionable trends, and new ideas that are ready to run with. What's more, you'll take away a trend-driven innovation method that will enable you to spot powerful trends — and innovate around them — for years to come.
Register to join below, but spaces are extremely. If demand requires, we may limit attendance to one representative per company.
A Finnish-food tech company, Solar Foods, is creating food from carbon dioxide. Using microbes cultured with electricity and air, Solar Foods have created an alternative protein called Solein which is now commercially available as a protein powder.
The product emerged after NASA’s Moon project highlighted the need to supply astronauts with lightweight and nutritious foods for long-term flights. Solein’s reliance on CO2 makes space the perfect place for it to take off.
Further, if renewable energy sources are used to power the production of Solein, it could be the first truly carbon negative food.
What role might agritech play in powering space exploration missions in the future? Could carbon-negative foods replace animal-based nutrition one day?
Global fertiliser emissions are being mapped for the first time from manufacturing through to dispersal, and early results show that emissions from manure and fertiliser are higher than emissions from the shipping and aviation industries combined.
However, a new Nature Food study shows that if wide-ranging mitigation measures are adopted, the emissions could be scaled back by more than 80%.
There’s pressure on the agriculture industry to lower its emissions and this comprehensive mapping pinpoints where these changes can be made.
How will agribusinesses demonstrate their commitment to reducing fertiliser and manure emissions to their customers?
The rise of carbon farming is expected to reduce the land available for animal husbandry. This has many agritech businesses considering the role of the oceans as an open and available space for aquaculture.
While aquaculture farming has its own challenges, startups are developing new and innovative solutions to make it a viable alternative to land-based farming.
For example, French start-up Seaducer has developed an oyster-farming system called Roll-Oyster which makes the oyster production process more energy-efficient, robust and automated.
How? It artificially replicates tides, wind and currents, rolling the oyster baskets so they alternate between being submerged and above water. Combined with other tools such as solar energy or oxygen and temperature sensors, the system can be enhanced, and the process automated even further.
Could carbon farming lead to a push for more offshore, contained aquaculture? Can aquaculture offer a sustainable alternative to land-based farming?
Venom from the world’s most venomous spider, the Blue Mountains funnel-web, has been developed as an insecticide called Spear RC.
Developed by crop protection company, Vestaron, Spear RC is targeted to cotton, rice, soybean and other broader acre crops to control pests like armyworms, cotton bollworms and soybean looper. Vestaron says Spear RC is environmentally friendly and has low toxicity to mammalians and non-target species.
With global discussions around the use of synthetic pesticides and their impact on human health and bees, could spider venom be the beginning of nature-based solutions?
A plant-based casein facility has been announced in Abu Dhabi.
Alternative dairy company Change Foods has government support to continue their work in the sustainable food tech space with estimations that plant-based casein could soon be more cost-effective and use less water than producing animal-based casein.
How could this disrupt the business of producing milk ingredients, and how could this flow on to the disruption of the dairy industry as a whole?
A new wave of startups are emerging in the cell-based protein space. Jellatech is one of them. The’re making functional, native collagen without animals through cellular agriculture.
While other companies are using fermentation and plant-based collagen, Jellatech’s techniques to mimic the cells mean their product is bio-identical to that of animal-derived collagen and can provide the same functionality.
The company’s cell-based approach has already led to animal-free collagen in pet food, and more recently, a functional human collagen which can be used for tissue engineering, arthritis treatment, and regenerative medicine.
Could cell-based agriculture be the key to sustainable farming? With the cost of cellular agriculture so high, how can it be more accessible?
The Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse Dave Goulson
As an avid beekeeper and gardener, I measure the success of my urban garden by the proliferation of life in it.
Dave Goulson is the David Attenborough of entomology. In his latest book he looks at the mistreatment we have dealt with insects; habitat loss, pesticides, herbicides, industrial agricultural practices, the spread of insect parasites and diseases by humans, climate change, light pollution, and invasive species… to name a few.
While most people know that most plants require pollination to produce fruits or seeds), we tend to think less about the role of insects in soil health. Insects can lessen our dependence on fertilisers and act as biological control agents that can help reduce our reliance on pesticides.
Goulson's hopeful and beautifully written book highlights the interconnectedness of all our systems - biological, climate and economic and offering suggestions for how to restore insect species.
A book that every farmer and gardener should read.
We’d love to hear your feedback so we can continue to share relevant monthly reads with you.
Don’t forget to share with us any signals or interesting innovations you’ve come across so we can spread the word. We enjoy seeing NZ companies be creative, innovative and push the boundaries, it makes for insightful reading.
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