Agriculture

Tyson Foods Inc.’s value-added chicken business combined with the acquisition of Hillshire Brands has created a prepared foods powerhouse. It has also given the company a diverse portfolio of businesses. On one side is the branded, value-added Chicken and Prepared Foods business units focused on innovation and brand building. On the other side is the more traditional commodity-oriented Beef and Pork businesses, which are committed to adding value to products, but also stocking the fresh meat cases of retailers with traditional cuts of beef and pork. [node:read-more:link]

The US Food and Drug Administration will be spending a few million dollars to ‘inform’ consumers about genetically modified food. It may not be long before Jane Doe from Indianapolis appears on a government funded billboard proclaiming to the world, “I just ate a healthful pork chop produced with patented soybeans genetically modified to withstand at least three non selective herbicides. [node:read-more:link]

“I like to call this the cathedral.” So says Matt Barnard, CEO and cofounder of the vertical farming startup Plenty. We’re standing in a room at the company’s headquarters in a former electronics distribution center in South San Francisco, staring up at glowing, 20-foot high towers filled with perfectly formed kale and herbs. The company isn’t the first to build an indoor urban farm in a warehouse. Aerofarms, for example, grows greens in a 70,000-square foot former steel factory in Newark, New Jersey. [node:read-more:link]

Every day, power plants and industries across the globe emit nearly 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — an effect that has pushed our climate into a dangerous zone, causing the Arctic to melt at an alarming rate, sea levels to rise, and weather patterns to shift across the world. But change is brewing and our best shot at reducing those emissions might be right under our feet. Projects are now being developed that capture the harmful gas before it's released into the atmosphere and bury it deep in the Earth. [node:read-more:link]

More than 124,000 acres of Delaware farmland are now permanently preserved for future generations, with 3,039 acres of easements selected into the state’s preservation program in the 21st year of selections made by the Delaware Agricultural Lands Preservation Foundation. The farms in this round would not have been preserved without matching funds from multiple sources, including the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, New Castle County and Kent County Levy Court. [node:read-more:link]

Idaho beekeepers are building modern storage facilities to protect their bees during the winter to so they can take full advantage of strong demand for their pollination services. French, with Cox’s Honey, explained he wants as many hives as possible to survive the winter so he can take full advantage of increasing demand for pollination services in California’s almond orchards. [node:read-more:link]

The beginnings of agriculture changed human history and has fascinated scientists for centuries. Researchers have now shed light on how hunter-gatherers first began farming and how crops were domesticated to depend on humans. The University of Sheffield researchers gathered seed size data from a range of crops and found strong evidence for a general enlargement of seeds due to domestication.They discovered domesticated maize seeds are 15 times bigger than the wild form, soybean seeds are seven times bigger. [node:read-more:link]

3-D printed bioprosthetic mouse ovaries restored fertility in infertile mice and produced healthy mouse pups. The mothers also were able to nurse their pups. The research is targeted to women whose cancer treatments impaired their fertility and hormone production. The ovaries are constructed of 3-D printed scaffolds that house immature eggs and were successful in boosting hormone production and restoring fertility. [node:read-more:link]

The breakthrough was possible thanks to a high-end printer that allowed researchers to print soft and rigid materials together within the same components. This made it possible for researchers to design more complex shapes for the robot's legs. The legs are made up of three parallel, connected sealed inflatable chambers, or actuators, 3-D-printed from a rubber-like material. The chambers are hollow on the inside, so they can be inflated. On the outside, the chambers are bellowed, which allows engineers to better control the legs' movements. [node:read-more:link]

A global study of land and agricultural methods shows dramatic differences in soil quality between farms that employ some simple management tools and those that don’t. [node:read-more:link]