Nurturing Growth: Low-Tech Water Harvesting Solutions for Small Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa
We face many challenges in addressing how we grow food to put on our table. One of the biggest issues is the farm productivity gap: simply, farmland is not as productive as it could be. Developed countries have adopted high-tech solutions like satellite guided data collection, integrated farm management systems, GPS controlled tractors, and smart […]
Integrating Multi-Omics Data for Enhanced Crop Improvement
If someone asked you which data sets are most important for plant breeding – genome or transcriptome data – how would you respond? It used to be that the obvious choice would have been the genome. However, the omics landscape has evolved, and the answer is far from straightforward. Both genome and transcriptome data play […]
Traditional arid land and water management
As someone who is deeply concerned about the future of our planet and the challenges we face in feeding a growing global population, I have been looking at traditional methods for arid land agriculture. I truly believe that traditional methods of agriculture can offer valuable insights and solutions for our current food production systems. Specifically, […]
Plant-Based Protein Foods: It’s not your mother’s veggie food anymore
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, as a vegetarian was not easy. My mom’s version of vegetables was mushy-mush and mostly came either from a can or the freezer. Back then, vegetarianism and veganism were not as mainstream, and options for plant-based protein were limited. Recently, I decided to try out some of the […]
The not-so-barren desert
When we think of vibrant biodiversity, it is the Amazonian jungles, the American Great Plains or the vast oceans that come to mind. For good reason, as they have been a source of pharmaceuticals, nutritionals, and biomass for energy products. It is for that reason that so many of us support conservation efforts to prevent […]
Space, Mars, and the desire to explore
We choose to go to the Moon … We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling […]